blaze a trail

Idioms  

1. Find a new path or method; begin a new undertaking. For example, His research blazed a trail for new kinds of gene therapy. This expression was first used literally in the 18th century for the practice of marking a forest trail by making blazes, that is, marking trees with notches or chips in the bark. [Late 1800s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

blaze a trail

One of the first to blaze a trail was Alek Wek, scouted in London in the 1990s after her family fled an earlier war.

From Barron's ● Mar. 13, 2026

And how did he blaze a trail to become one Britain's first Asian MPs?

From BBC ● Oct. 19, 2024

When will Santos blaze a trail to join her?

From Slate ● Feb. 4, 2023

“Judith Durham gave voice to a new strand of our identity and helped blaze a trail for a new generation of Aussie artists,” Albanese wrote on Twitter.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 6, 2022

None of them thought to blaze a trail as they wandered, consequently had no means of telling how far or in what direction they had gone before Dick found a few small mushrooms.

From Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks by Roy, Lillian Elizabeth