turn up to bat
- idiom
- Informal
:
tener la oportunidad
- After months of preparation, it's finally my turn up to bat at the big meeting.
Examples
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Everyone was nervous until it was their turn up to bat in the debate.
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He always waits for his turn up to bat patiently.
-
When the lead actor got sick, her understudy had her turn up to bat.
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It's my turn to turn up to bat!
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After months of preparation, it's finally my turn up to bat at the big meeting.
-
Everyone was nervous until it was their turn up to bat in the debate.
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He always waits for his turn up to bat patiently during group discussions.
Synonyms
758
1.0
A chance in a sequence to act or speak
140
1.3
A player's turn to try to hit the ball in a game
40
5.7
A player's turn to try to hit the ball and get to a base in baseball
Surface Forms
Morphology
The core meaning is largely derivable from combining 'turn' (an occasion to act) with 'bat' (the baseball role of batting), so a learner who knows those words could infer this refers to one’s chance to participate. However, the phrasing 'turn up to bat' relies on a baseball-specific metaphor and the particles 'up to' may be slightly idiomatic or unclear cross‑linguistically, so the relation is not fully predictable for all B1 learners.
Etymology
The idiom turn up to bat comes from baseball, where each player waits until it is their turn to step up and hit with the bat. That's why it now means 'your chance to act or take part'.