beat the clock
IdiomsExample Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
When a guard tells them they just beat the clock, the nervous Ray-Ray sputters, “Oh we’re not together—right, Sal?. . . Um, I meant sir, not Sal—right, Sal?”
From The Wall Street Journal ● Mar. 31, 2026
It has haunted him ever since, so much so that it added the third piece of the triangle: the urgency to beat the clock.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
“This premise that there was an intent to beat the clock is ridiculous,” Inglewood Mayor James T. Butts Jr. said at the time.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 29, 2021
People were jostling to beat the clock, to be the first to speak with someone.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 28, 2021
I used to break out in a sweat trying to beat the clock.
From "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
