Meanings
present singular third person hightails · participle present hightailing · participle past hightailed · past hightailed
- CanadaUSinformaltransitiveusuallyTo move at full speed, especially in retreat.
He hightailed it toward town.
2 more examples
I want you to hightail your butt out of there before they come back.
When I saw he had scored, I just hightailed out of there, because all those people started running down on the field and that's a lot more dangerous than playing.
2008, Dave Klein, The Game of Their Lives: The 1958 NFL Championship, page 217Synonyms: skedaddle, move quickly, skedaddle
Synonyms & antonyms
verbTo move at full speed, especially in retreat.
More synonyms by meaning
Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.
Origin
From high + tail; refers to the behavior of fleeing animals, such as deer, that raise their tail when running away.
Full word history & related roots →Translations
German abrauschen, flüchten
- abrauschento move at full speed, especially in retreat
- flüchtento move at full speed, especially in retreat
Russian свалить
- свалить (svalitʹ)to move at full speed, especially in retreat
Cite this entry
hightail. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hightail
“hightail.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hightail. Accessed November 3, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “hightail,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/hightail.
Source: hightail on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.