jumping-off place
Americannoun
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a place for use as a starting point.
Paris was the jumping-off place for our tour of Europe.
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an out-of-the-way place; the farthest limit of anything settled or civilized.
noun
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a starting point, as in an enterprise
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a final or extreme condition
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a place where one leaves civilization to go into the wilderness
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a very remote spot
Etymology
Origin of jumping-off place
An Americanism dating back to 1820–30
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
A book was a big jumping-off place for me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 14, 2025
Romanoff told me in May that the internet is a perfect jumping-off place for a story about growing up: “The question of coming-of-age is the enormous question of ‘how can you be yourself?’
From The Verge ● Nov. 7, 2017
The Seattle Chamber of Commerce acted quickly to promote the city as the leading outfitter for miners and jumping-off place for the Klondike, pre-empting Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco and Vancouver, B.C.
From Seattle Times ● Jun. 10, 2017
His headquarters had been New York, but he also used that as a jumping-off place for rides in Florida, Kentucky and, especially, the prestigious summer meeting at Saratoga.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 2, 2015
A stone weir slowed the current and was a favorite diving and jumping-off place.
From "Atonement" by Ian McEwan
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.
