call an audible
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English
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Verb
[edit]call an audible (third-person singular simple present calls an audible, present participle calling an audible, simple past and past participle called an audible)
- (American football) To change the play at the line of scrimmage by yelling out a new one.
- (US, idiomatic) To change plans at the last minute in response to new information.
- 1997 October 29, James R. Oestreich, “Juilliard Quartet's Musical Chairs; Sounding Board for the New, Strings Attached to the Old”, in The New York Times:
- Mr. Krosnick explained with the help of a football analogy. "If somebody called an audible, we'd be right there […] It has always been that way. We never did that much planning. All the talk and analysis was intended to outline the parameters of our instincts."
- 2001 December 5, Jim Hoagland, “'Calling Audibles'”, in The Washington Post:
- "We will be calling audibles every time we come to the line," one participant recalls [Condoleezza Rice] saying to [Bush] then.
- 2004, Richard L. Armitage, Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations for 2005: Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Appropriations, House of Representatives, One Hundred Eighth Congress, Second Session, Part 5: Iraq Reconstruction Program, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 10:
- We found this insurgency much more virile than we expected, so we called an audible.
- 2008, Doug Fields & Duffy Robbins, Speaking to Teenagers: How to Think About, Create, and Deliver Effective Messages, Zondervan/Youth Specialties, page 28:
- Based on that decoding process, we may need to call an audible and either fine-tune or change channels in an attempt to help teenagers decode our messages more accurately.
- 2014, Christopher R. Hill, Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy: A Memoir, Simon & Schuster, page 216:
- I reflected on what must have been their instructions, and what would have been the consequences for them of not following them, or of calling an audible, not a concept known in the North Korean foreign ministry.