run for it

1. Also, run for one's life. Depart as fast as possible, either to escape danger or to reach something quickly. For example, You'd better run for it before the teacher catches you, or The bully is coming after you—run for your life! The for it in the first term almost certainly means “for one's life”—that is, to save one's life, a usage that can be literal or hyperbolic. Also see for dear life; make a break for it.

Example Sentences

Instead of making a run for it, he resolves to hunker down until the heat is off.

Read more on The Wall Street Journal

Hours after Mr Smith and the FBI's surveillance specialists went off shift, he said Mr San Diego made a run for it with detectives in pursuit.

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Over the years, pursuit suspects have tried to evade police by driving into parking garages or into Los Angeles International Airport, where there are flight restrictions for news choppers, or trying to run for it.

Read more on Los Angeles Times

“We don’t get enough water. They put out a little case of water, and everyone has to run for it,” the girl said in testimony related to conditions in immigrant detention.

Read more on Salon

It was an homage to Joe Manchin, a man who left the Democratic Party and did not win when his senate seat last came up reelection—so poor was his polling that he declined to even run for it.

Read more on Slate

Related Words

• break 
• disappear 
• run 
• take off 
• withdraw