"in one's tracks" meaning in English

See in one's tracks in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Prepositional phrase

Head templates: {{head|en|prepositional phrase|head=}} in one's tracks, {{en-PP}} in one's tracks
  1. Suddenly; abruptly, right where one stands. Related terms: bring up short
    Sense id: en-in_one's_tracks-en-prep_phrase-D3BPzJS5 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header, Pages with 1 entry, Pages with entries
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "in one's tracks",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "in one's tracks",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with 1 entry",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        },
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "Pages with entries",
          "parents": [],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2006 October 28, Mike Averis, “Bristol's heavy brigade knock back potent Brew for victory”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "The sinner of the first half cut in from the left wing, losing his marker to take a gentle pass from Ceri Sweeney and leave Bristol's Craig Morgan frozen in his tracks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 July 11, Haroon Siddique, “Barefoot Bandit arrested in the Bahamas”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "After two years on the run from the US authorities the suspected thief known as the Barefoot Bandit has finally been stopped in his tracks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 July 12, “Cyclist warns of road sign obstruction”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "Cyclist Anthony Robson found himself stopped in his tracks by this road sign.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Erin Elliott, Mira's Last (young adult fantasy), page 35:",
          "text": "Galena turned to look at them, her face alight with the glow the Sword of Lumina provided. Her expression was dangerous. It would have stopped most creatures dead in their tracks, but not the earagos. However, that could have been the fact they had poor vision.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 April 10, qntm, “CASE HATE RED”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 141:",
          "text": "As he creeps towards the main road, someone, another occupied former human, pokes their head around the corner, then calls to others in the strange language, pointing him out. Wheeler stops in his tracks. In another moment, ten or eleven non-people are advancing on him from the road. Two of them are carrying something with them, a limp, badly broken human— a normal human, Wheeler realises with some shock, like him.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Suddenly; abruptly, right where one stands."
      ],
      "id": "en-in_one's_tracks-en-prep_phrase-D3BPzJS5",
      "links": [
        [
          "Suddenly",
          "suddenly#English"
        ],
        [
          "abruptly",
          "abruptly"
        ],
        [
          "stand",
          "stand"
        ]
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "bring up short"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "in one's tracks"
}
{
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "en",
        "2": "prepositional phrase",
        "head": ""
      },
      "expansion": "in one's tracks",
      "name": "head"
    },
    {
      "args": {},
      "expansion": "in one's tracks",
      "name": "en-PP"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "prep_phrase",
  "related": [
    {
      "word": "bring up short"
    }
  ],
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English prepositional phrases",
        "English terms with quotations",
        "Pages with 1 entry",
        "Pages with entries"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2006 October 28, Mike Averis, “Bristol's heavy brigade knock back potent Brew for victory”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "The sinner of the first half cut in from the left wing, losing his marker to take a gentle pass from Ceri Sweeney and leave Bristol's Craig Morgan frozen in his tracks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 July 11, Haroon Siddique, “Barefoot Bandit arrested in the Bahamas”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "After two years on the run from the US authorities the suspected thief known as the Barefoot Bandit has finally been stopped in his tracks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2010 July 12, “Cyclist warns of road sign obstruction”, in The Guardian:",
          "text": "Cyclist Anthony Robson found himself stopped in his tracks by this road sign.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Erin Elliott, Mira's Last (young adult fantasy), page 35:",
          "text": "Galena turned to look at them, her face alight with the glow the Sword of Lumina provided. Her expression was dangerous. It would have stopped most creatures dead in their tracks, but not the earagos. However, that could have been the fact they had poor vision.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2019 April 10, qntm, “CASE HATE RED”, in There Is No Antimemetics Division, →ISBN, page 141:",
          "text": "As he creeps towards the main road, someone, another occupied former human, pokes their head around the corner, then calls to others in the strange language, pointing him out. Wheeler stops in his tracks. In another moment, ten or eleven non-people are advancing on him from the road. Two of them are carrying something with them, a limp, badly broken human— a normal human, Wheeler realises with some shock, like him.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Suddenly; abruptly, right where one stands."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "Suddenly",
          "suddenly#English"
        ],
        [
          "abruptly",
          "abruptly"
        ],
        [
          "stand",
          "stand"
        ]
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "in one's tracks"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-04-08 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-04-03 using wiktextract (51d164f and fb63907). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.