to miss an opportunity
14
2.8
- phrasal verb
:
perder una oportunidad
- Then, as today, no visitor to the area would miss an opportunity to view these spectacular and mysterious structures.
- never miss an opportunity
- rarely miss an opportunity
- miss an opportunity to make
But of course, the far right cannot miss an opportunity to be racist.
- But of course, the far right cannot miss an opportunity to be racist.
- And he was just, he's just a really loving, you know, Family Guy and but never missed an opportunity to make a buck.
- And again, the Democrats are missing an opportunity here to start claiming, accurately that Donald Trump is a lame duck already.
- I mean, I would not want to ever miss an opportunity to sit down with y'all to and make some fucking magic because you never know who you're going to touch.
- So the belief that the person has is if I miss an opportunity, which matters a lot to me, right?
- But I think if we would do this, we really miss an opportunity.
Examples
-
Unfortunately, it can be a time when invisible students can miss an opportunity to make a connection.
Academic text (2009) -
My mom never misses an opportunity to tell a complete stranger that her daughter is graduating from Stanford.
-
I just got to thinking last night maybe we're missing an opportunity here.
-
I never miss an opportunity to hang out with a fellow fan of the Supreme Court.
-
Don't miss an opportunity to remind everyone in your debt that they should repay you with their support.
Academic text (2012) -
Tim Tebow seems to never miss an opportunity to share his beliefs.
Blog text (2) -
Righteous speech, Mr. Larousse, but I think we're missing an opportunity.
-
Although a government has been formed, Iraq's political factions sadly missed an opportunity to secure the public's belief in the democratic system.
Academic text (2011) -
Neglecting to investigate the historical roots of the town's problems, reporters missed an opportunity to give a full accounting of Cheshire's predicament.
Academic text (2005) -
I never miss an opportunity to hang out with a fellow fan of the Supreme Court.
Synonyms
∞
1.1
Fail to understand or follow what someone says
176
3.6
Lose the chance to enjoy something good
14
3.8
Fail to get on a bus before it leaves or lose an important chance
8
4.9
Miss a good opportunity by making a mistake
Antonyms
How Opportunistic
Surface Forms
Morphology
miss + an + opportunity
The meaning 'to fail to take advantage of a chance' is directly and transparently derived from 'miss' (to fail to catch/overlook) combined with 'opportunity' (a chance or favorable situation); the article 'an' does not change the compositional meaning. This is a straightforward, cross‑linguistic compositional pattern, so a B1 learner who knows the constituent words would be able to infer the MWE's meaning.
Etymology
The phrase miss an opportunity uses the image of a train or bus called an opportunity leaving the station; if you do not get on, you miss it. So it means 'to fail to take a chance'.