beat a retreat

Idioms  

1. Also, beat a hasty retreat. Reverse course or withdraw, usually quickly. For example, I really don't want to run into Jeff—let's beat a retreat. This term originally (1300s) referred to the military practice of sounding drums to call back troops. Today it is used only figuratively, as in the example above.

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Example Sentences

Along with outsize earnings-day stock losses for AT&T, U.S. equity benchmarks beat a retreat.

From Reuters • Apr. 21, 2023

The surge has led states and cities across the U.S. to beat a retreat, just weeks after it looked as if the country was going to see a close-to-normal summer.

From Seattle Times • Aug. 2, 2021

I was a cub reporter at the Kansas City Star, and a colleague dragged me to one of the chain’s metro locations, back before White Castle beat a retreat from the K.C. market.

From Washington Post • Jul. 6, 2021

They will look, too, at Marshall's seriously unwise decision to move so far into no-man's land without the pace in his legs to beat a retreat.

From BBC • Jun. 14, 2021

Finding knocks and thumps on the door as useless as their entreaties, and that the keyhole had been carefully stopped up with a piece of soft paper, the four beat a retreat.

From The Girls of St. Cyprian's A Tale of School Life by Brazil, Angela