fire the starting gun

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English

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Verb

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fire the starting gun (third-person singular simple present fires the starting gun, present participle firing the starting gun, simple past and past participle fired the starting gun)

  1. (idiomatic, often followed by on) To launch or trigger an event or situation.
    • 2018 November 19, Kalyeena Makortoff, “Noel Edmonds likely to file £60m Lloyds lawsuit on Wednesday”, in The Guardian[1]:
      The TV and radio star Noel Edmonds, who is expected to join ITV’s I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out Of Here jungle camp this week, is also likely to fire the starting gun on a £60m lawsuit against Lloyds Bank.
    • 2023 May 17, Jamie Smyth, “Quick blood tests to spot cancer: will they help or harm patients?”, in Financial Times[2]:
      Halks-Miller’s discovery fired the starting gun on the race to develop a diagnostic blood test. Illumina spun off a new company, Grail, to develop the test, raising more than $2bn from investors including Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and the Chinese company Tencent.