to leave for dust
- phrasal verb
- Informal
:
dejar atrás
- The young chess prodigy left for dust all his seasoned competitors in the tournament.
Examples
-
By mile ten, she had left for dust the rest of the runners.
-
Their new phone technology leaves for dust anything else on the market.
-
She can leave for dust anyone in the race!
-
The new model leaves for dust the previous version.
-
By mile ten, she had left for dust the rest of the runners.
-
The young chess prodigy left for dust all his seasoned competitors in the tournament.
-
Their new phone technology leaves for dust anything else on the market.
Synonyms
22
3.8
Be better than someone at something
13
6.0
To go far ahead of someone in speed or success
12
6.0
To beat someone or something completely by a lot
2
6.7
Get much farther ahead of other people in a race or competition
2
6.1
To do better than someone or something and win
1
5.9
To get ahead of others in progress or achievement
1
7.2
To do much better than people expect
Do much better than other companies or teams
Antonyms
How Far
386
4.7
- Informal
∞
1.4
30
4.8
45
3.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
The image of leaving someone so far behind that only dust is left makes the sense of outpacing or surpassing motivated by the constituents 'leave' and 'dust', so a learner who knows those words can often infer the general meaning. However, the meaning relies on a conventional motion metaphor and the preposition here is unusual compared with the more common 'leave in the dust', so the exact idiomatic usage may not be fully predictable for a B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Leave for dust comes from old races: a fast runner or vehicle would leave others so far behind that clouds of dust rose where the slow ones stood. So to leave someone for dust means to 'completely surpass' them or put them far behind.