hot on someone's heels

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

Adjective

hot on someone's heels (not comparable)

1. (idiomatic) Close behind; pursuing or following closely.

   She left the restaurant with him hot on her heels.

   • 2012 April 9, Mandeep Sanghera, “Tottenham 1 - 2 Norwich”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:

     Newcastle beat Bolton to increase the pressure on the Londoners, while Chelsea are also hot on the heels of faltering Tottenham, who have one win from their last eight games.

   • 2021 June 30, Philip Haigh, “Regional trains squeezed as ECML congestion heads north”, in RAIL, number 934, page 52:

     Hot on the heels of Network Rail remodelling King's Cross comes news of cuts to East Coast Main Line services.

Translations

close behind

• Catalan: a l'encalç
• Finnish: olla kintereillä
• French: aux trousses de (fr)
• German: dicht auf den Fersen
• Italian: alle calcagna
• Polish: deptać po piętach (pl) impf (verb)
• Russian: (verb) ^{(please verify)} дыша́ть в заты́лок (dyšátʹ v zatýlok), (verb) ^{(please verify)} наступа́ть на пятки (nastupátʹ na pjatki), ^{(please verify)} на хвосте (na xvoste)
• Swedish: hack i häl (sv)

References

• “hot on the heels of”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.