idiom · neutral

race against time

/reɪs əˈɡɛnst taɪm/RACE·a·gainst·TIME

speakingtask2

a situation in which people try to do something very quickly before a deadline or danger

Examples

“It was a race against time to rescue the hikers before nightfall.”

“The engineers faced a race against time to fix the leak.”

“Developing a vaccine became a global race against time.”

Band 8 sentence

“With the hurricane approaching, relief teams engaged in a race against time to distribute food and medicine to coastal villages.”

Collocations

  • a race against time to repair/evacuate/finish

Word family

a race against time idiomrace against the clock idiom

Common mistakes

race with time→race against time

race of time→race against time

Say it for a higher band

5hurry→6race to finish→7+race against time

Synonyms

against the clock

Easily confused

against the clock

“We were working against the clock to finish the report before the deadline.”

Related words

no time to losefor the time beingin the meantimein no timeonce in a blue moonin the long runrun out of timetake your time

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In Time

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