get off the ground

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.

Example Sentences

This all should provoke some American rethinking: Hamas’s revival risks preventing any international stabilization force from getting off the ground.

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These headwinds have made it hard for builders and related companies to get off the ground.

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Those plans never got off the ground and were criticized as unworkable.

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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.

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But it has also made it hard for domestic textile firms to get off the ground.

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