shoot through

present singular third person shoots through · participle present shooting through · participle past shot through · past shot through

1. AustraliaNew ZealandinformalTo leave, to disappear.

   He shoots through to Australia, and I'm left with the kid.

   1982, James K. Baxter, Howard McNaughton., Collected Plays, page 123

   4 more examples

   ‘If I haven't got that money this evening I'll have to shoot through.’

   1963, Ronald Hugh Morrieson, The Scarecrow, Text Classics, published 2012, page 180

   He did not mind the new store, but when some stirrer said that there was a motel coming, he shot through to find a better hole further inland, muttering that 'the place is getting as big as one of them southern city places!’

   1977, Valmai Phillips, Romance of Australian Lighthouses, unidentified page

   But on learning it was twins he shot through to Queensland into – I later discovered – the waiting arms of his lover.

   2008, Elizabeth Bruce, A Show Off, Just Like Your Father, page 68

   What Father Nelson must have made of our all-too-candid (and slightly embellished) responses is anybody's guess, but it wasn't long before he shot through to New Guinea to work as a missionary with the kind of tribesmen who wear penis gourds.

   2010, Stephen Lacey, Henry Loves Jazz: The Diary of a Reluctant Father, unnumbered page

2. AustraliaNew ZealandinformalTo die.

   Play your didgeridoo, Blue / Play your didgeridoo / Ah, like, keep playin' 'til I shoot through, Blue / Play your didgeridoo

   1957, Rolf Harris, Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see shoot, through.

   A mostly novelized story shot through with some factual names and dates.