Englishget a move on
Meaning: To hurry.
Example: “Get a move on, or we'll miss the start of the movie.”
Equivalents in other languages
Ukrainian: Брати ноги в руки (Braty nohy v ruky) Literally: To take your legs in your hands
Origin: Belongs to a family of American slang constructions of the 1880s and 1890s built on the same template — get a wiggle on, get a hustle on, get a hump on — all of which turn a word for motion into something a person acquires and then wears, like a hat. The oddity of the grammar is the point: you do not simply move, you get a move and put it on, which frames haste as a visible state rather than an action. The immediate background is the era's standard police instruction to loiterers to move along or move on, and the slang version borrows its impatience wholesale. Of the whole family only this one survived into general use.
More English idioms
- get the go-ahead To receive or grant permission to proceed.
- get the message To understand something that is only hinted at, perhaps because it is unpleasant.
- get this show on the road To get started.
- get to the point To speak or write concisely and directly.
- get-up-and-go Physical energy.
- get up on the wrong side of the bed To be in a bad mood from the beginning of the day.
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