steal a march
steal a march verb: to gain an advantage unobserved.
Verb
steal a march (third-person singular simple present steals a march, present participle stealing a march, simple past stole a march, past participle stolen a march)
- To gain an advantage unobserved.
- Fifty thousand men cannot easily steal a march over the sea.1759 August 1, Horace Walpole, Letter to Sir Horace Mann, page 501
- You muſt knovv, ſhe yeſterday vvanted to ſteal a march of poor Liddy, and vvent to breakfaſt in the Room vvithout any other companion than her dog, in expectation of meeting vvith the Baronet, […]1771, [Tobias Smollett], “To Sir Watkin Phillips, of Jesus College, Oxon.”, in The Expedition of Humphry Clinker […], volume I, London: […] W. Johnston, […]; and B. Collins, […], →OCLC, pages 127–128
- To start early.
- They stole a march by taking non-merchandise inventory on January 2.
- In the morning he stole a march on the sun, for he had finished breakfast when its first rays caught him.1905, Jack London, All Gold Canyon
Forms of steal a march
| third-person singular present | steals a march |
|---|---|
| present participle | stealing a march |
| past | stole a march |
| past participle | stolen a march |
Questions about steal a march
- What does steal a march mean?
- Steal a march means to gain an advantage unobserved.
- What part of speech is steal a march?
- Steal a march is a verb.
- What is the past tense of steal a march?
- The past tense of steal a march is stole a march.
Words near steal a march in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: steal a march (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-steal a march.ogg.
Cite this entry: “steal a march.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/steal_a_march. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.