fire the starting gun
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English[edit]
Verb[edit]
fire the starting gun (third-person singular simple present fires the starting gun, present participle firing the starting gun, simple past and past participle fired the starting gun)
- (idiomatic, often followed by on) To launch or trigger an event or situation.
- 2018 November 19, Kalyeena Makortoff, “Noel Edmonds likely to file £60m Lloyds lawsuit on Wednesday”, in The Guardian[1]:
- The TV and radio star Noel Edmonds, who is expected to join ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here jungle camp this week, is also likely to fire the starting gun on a £60m lawsuit against Lloyds Bank.
- 2023 May 17, Jamie Smyth, “Quick blood tests to spot cancer: will they help or harm patients?”, in Financial Times[2]:
- Halks-Miller’s discovery fired the starting gun on the race to develop a diagnostic blood test. Illumina spun off a new company, Grail, to develop the test, raising more than $2bn from investors including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and the Chinese company Tencent.