"two steps ahead" meaning in English

See two steps ahead in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Phrase

Audio: En-au-two steps ahead.ogg [Australia]
Head templates: {{head|en|phrase|head=two steps ahead}} two steps ahead
  1. (idiomatic) Having cleverly anticipated what others will do or think. Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Two
    Sense id: en-two_steps_ahead-en-phrase-Jfebbwjx Disambiguation of Two: 67 33 Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 61 39
  2. Just barely escaping.
    Sense id: en-two_steps_ahead-en-phrase-vk5Hp1tz

Download JSON data for two steps ahead meaning in English (3.2kB)

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        {
          "ref": "2009, Elaine Biech -, The 2010 Pfeiffer Annual: Training",
          "text": "During strategy discussions,I feel two steps ahead and often believe discussions are wasting time and slowing progress.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Hadley Hoover, Storm Path, page 9",
          "text": "“You'll need more help than Dave and Frank can give, just to get it down from the truck, over the lawn and inside,” she said practically. “Two steps ahead of you, M'lady. I stopped by the grocery store, so Dave knows to come home and help.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2017 July 30, Ali Barthwell, “Ice and fire finally meet in a front-loaded episode of Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club",
          "text": "She dismisses Littlefinger’s advice to prepare for every possible outcome and see the world as a place of unimaginable horror. Littlefinger is telling her to be a little more like Cersei, always two steps ahead. The difference between Sansa and Cersei is that she has no desire to repeat what has been done to her as an act of vengeance.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "Having cleverly anticipated what others will do or think."
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        "(idiomatic) Having cleverly anticipated what others will do or think."
      ],
      "tags": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "2011, William W. Johnstone, Law of the Mountain Man",
          "text": "He's supposed to have raped and kilt a woman when he was 'bout fourteen or fifteen and had to flee, two steps ahead of the law",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Kim Newman, The Night Mayor",
          "text": "From the dryout farm, Tunney had moved down to the border, mooched around in cantinas for a while, then left the country two steps ahead of the sheriff of some Rio Grande jerkwater.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, James S. Donnelly, Jr, The Land and the People of Nineteenth-Century Cork",
          "text": "Desperately trying to keep two steps ahead of the bill collector, tenants frequently neglected to request permission for these sales, and they or those whom they duped into partin with their money usually suffered the consequences.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "Just barely escaping."
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      "id": "en-two_steps_ahead-en-phrase-vk5Hp1tz"
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          "text": "During strategy discussions,I feel two steps ahead and often believe discussions are wasting time and slowing progress.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2013, Hadley Hoover, Storm Path, page 9",
          "text": "“You'll need more help than Dave and Frank can give, just to get it down from the truck, over the lawn and inside,” she said practically. “Two steps ahead of you, M'lady. I stopped by the grocery store, so Dave knows to come home and help.\"",
          "type": "quotation"
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        {
          "ref": "2017 July 30, Ali Barthwell, “Ice and fire finally meet in a front-loaded episode of Game Of Thrones (newbies)”, in The Onion AV Club",
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        "(idiomatic) Having cleverly anticipated what others will do or think."
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          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2015, Kim Newman, The Night Mayor",
          "text": "From the dryout farm, Tunney had moved down to the border, mooched around in cantinas for a while, then left the country two steps ahead of the sheriff of some Rio Grande jerkwater.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2017, James S. Donnelly, Jr, The Land and the People of Nineteenth-Century Cork",
          "text": "Desperately trying to keep two steps ahead of the bill collector, tenants frequently neglected to request permission for these sales, and they or those whom they duped into partin with their money usually suffered the consequences.",
          "type": "quotation"
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        "Just barely escaping."
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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 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). 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.