off the bat

English

Etymology

From cricket, baseball, and other sports where a bat is used to strike a ball and the players have to make an immediate decision where to run and what plays to make after a successful strike.

Pronunciation

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

Prepositional phrase

off the bat

1. (US, idiomatic) From the start; immediately; right away.

   hot off the bat   straight off the bat

   I didn't see anything wrong, off the bat.

   • 2023 November 29, Richard Foster, “Tyne & Wear Metro goes with the flow”, in RAIL, number 997, page 35:

     "We're not going to uplift the frequency until we've got the new trains. But what we've seen straight off the bat has been a big winner for our customers."

Synonyms

• from the get-go
• right out of the gate
• straight out of the gate
• straight out of the chute

Derived terms

• right off the bat