get off the ground

Idioms  

1. Make a start, get underway, as in Because of legal difficulties, the construction project never got off the ground. This expression, alluding to flight, dates from the mid-1900s. The similar-sounding get off to a flying start, meaning “make a successful start,” alludes not to flight but to a quick start in a race, a usage from the late 1800s. For example, He's off to a flying start with his dissertation.

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Example Sentences

SoftBank’s involvement in another giant pledge by Son—a $500 billion data-center project with OpenAI announced in January—has yet to get off the ground.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 5, 2025

As for why a holiday event took about two decades to get off the ground, Grant cops to being a “canyon hippie” and says, “We took it one year at a time.”

From Los Angeles Times • Dec. 4, 2025

Amid the cautious approach from the industry and regulators, some U.S.-based retail investors, like Kunal Berry and Akshay Anandan, say they can’t wait for extended overnight trading of U.S. stocks to get off the ground.

From MarketWatch • Nov. 13, 2025

The project, which took eight years to get off the ground, will be studied for five years to see how effective it is at protecting the turbine from erosion and how bio-diverse it becomes.

From BBC • Oct. 16, 2025

Each of these women, on her own, gauged the wind of her nation and used it to help her sister pilots get off the ground.

From "A Thousand Sisters" by Elizabeth Wein