starting gate

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noun

any of various types of movable barriers for lining up and giving an equal start to the entries in a horse or dog race.

Origin of starting gate

First recorded in 1895–1900

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for starting gate

Contemporary Examples of starting gate

In short, I feel put on the spot, and come up lame right out of the starting-gate.
Fear And Self-Loathing In Scandinavia: The Fiction Of Karl Ove Knausgaard
Ted Gioia
May 28, 2014

Historical Examples of starting gate

So, perfectly calm and very much bored, he danced to the starting-gate on the chestnut filly.
McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 6, October, 1908
Various
Through a maze of heat, a half-mile distant, at the starting-gate, little spots of color moved in impatient circles.
The Man Who Could Not Lose
Richard Harding Davis
Then, amid a murmur of excitement, the starting-gate went up, and the horses were off.
Adrien Leroy
Charles Garvice

British Dictionary definitions for starting gate

starting gate

noun

a movable barrier so placed on the starting line of a racecourse that the raising of it releases all the contestants simultaneously

the US name for starting stalls

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012