race against time

race against time

1. noun An attempt to accomplish something in a short amount of time. It was a race against time to put out the fire before it spread to the neighboring properties.
2. verb To act quickly to accomplish something in a short amount of time. Jen's going to have to race against time if she wants to get her story in tomorrow's newspaper—it's almost time to send it to the publisher!
See also: race, time
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

race against time

 
1. a rush; a rush to beat a deadline. We were in a race against time to beat the deadline. It was a race against time, but we made it.
2. to hurry to beat a deadline. We had to race against time to finish before the deadline. You don't need to race against time. Take all the time you want.
See also: race, time
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

a race against time

COMMON A race against time is a situation in which you only have a very short time to finish an important task and you have to work very quickly. It was now a race against time to rescue people from the freezing water. But the relief efforts are a race against time and there will be more deaths unless food and water quickly reach the survivors. Note: You can also say that someone is in a race against time. The paramedics were in a race against time to treat a six-year-old girl with breathing difficulties. Note: You can also say that someone is racing against time to mean the same thing. Irene Blanthorn is racing against time to save the life of a little boy on the other side of the world.
See also: race, time
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

a race against time

a situation in which someone attempts to do or complete something before a particular time or before something else happens.
See also: race, time
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

a ˌrace against ˈtime/the ˈclock

a situation in which you have to do something or finish something very fast before it is too late: It was a race against time to reach the shore before the boat sank.
See also: clock, race, time
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary
See also:
  • a race against time
  • against the clock
  • against time
  • be taken up with (someone or something)
  • any time means no time
  • any time
  • anytime
  • (it's) (a)bout time
  • about time
  • at all hours
References in periodicals archive
Then it's a race against time to get Will Stuart of Jake Cooper-Woolley back on the bench." Dai Young
Time is so tight as Wasps props face race to be fit for Cup clash; RUGBY
Having worked together on multiple projects like 'The Last Lear', 'Waqt: The race against time' and 'Mohabbatein', the duo share a warm and friendly bond.
Big B receives special gift from Shefali Shah
It's a race against time and I'd particularly love to get some help from a vet."
HELP SAVE LIONS A CRUEL ZOO DUMPED; Pets AND THEIR people Beasts will die without YOUR cash
FIREFIGHTERS faced a race against time to rescue a man stuck up to his shoulders in the mud of a river bed as the tide came in.
Mud drama
JEREMY McWILLIAMS, Britain's sole contestant in this year's Moto GP series, faces a race against time to be fully fit for the season opener in Qatar next month.
JEREMY'S RACE AGAINST TIME
The only way out is to work harder--but when her elders are arrested it's up to Maggie and her mother and brother to race against time to get the job done.
Scholastic Inc
Sedgwick has outlined a fairly simple tale--two young teens in London in the 1800s race against time to help a magician who made an evil pact 15 years earlier and is now trying to avoid paying the agreed-upon price of his life ...
Sedgwick, Marcus. The book of dead days
Church World Service (CWS), an alliance member of Action by Churches Together (of which the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund--the relief arm of the Anglican Church of Canada--is also a member) is conducting relief operations on the ground and said it is in a "race against time."
Relief agencies in 'race against time': disaster looms in earthquake region unless help arrives
The advent of World War II had made the quest for the atomic bomb into a nail-biting, if highly secretive, race against time. By the early 1940s, the United States, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union were each competing to perfect the ultimate weapon that would win the war--for them.
1945: dropping the bomb: sixty years ago this August, the nuclear age began with U.S. attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
PAUL BENTLEY faces a race against time to be fit for Glasgow Tigers' crucial opening Premier League speedway clash today against in-form Exeter (1pm start).
Speedway: LATE TEST FOR PAUL
The report's title, A Race Against Time, refers to a 20-year window of opportunity to tackle the problem.
Young hearts suffer in poorer countries
For East German examples, the research process was, in some cases, a race against time. Seminal buildings have been demolished in the post-1989 buy out and closing of the East's industrial base.
Two Germanys, one Architecture
Vivid but sparse signs of the so-called Higgs boson at the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP) in Switzerland have also sparked a desperate race against time to catch further glimpses before researchers pull the plug on the 11-year-old machine.
Most-Wanted Particle Appears, Perhaps
Joie de vivre--or a race against time? For Jean Tinguely, making art was clearly a matter of life and death.
L'Esprit de Tinguely
It will be a race against time to construct a sandcastle worthy of taking on the mighty fight against the tide.
Sandcastles THIS weekend there [...]; Noticeboard