about to

about to

English

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Phrase

about to

1. (idiomatic, with infinitive verb) Indicates something that will happen very soon; indicates action that is imminent.

   He's standing at the edge, and I think he's about to jump.

   She seemed about to say something.

   • 1769, King James Bible, Oxford Standard text, Acts of the Apostles, xviii, 14

     And when Paul was now about to open his mouth, Gallio said unto the Jews, If it were a matter of wrong or wicked lewdness, O ye Jews, reason would that I should bear with you:

   • 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter I, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., OCLC 222716698:

     I was about to say that I had known the Celebrity from the time he wore kilts. But I see I will have to amend that, because he was not a celebrity then, nor, indeed, did he achieve fame until some time after I left New York for the West.

2. (as negative 'not about to', informal, originally US, Canada) Indicates that one has no intention of doing the stated thing at any time in the future.

   I'm not about to let the lockdown stop me from going to the beach every day.

   I'm not about to impose laws on people who disagree with them.

3. (obsolete in affirmative) Indicates that one is preparing or planning to do the stated thing at some time in the future, not necessarily imminently. [from ca. 1150—1350 to late 18th c.[1]]

Synonyms

• bound to
• fixing to

Translations

indicating imminence

Albanian: please add this translation if you can Arabic: عَلَى وَشْك‎ (ʿalā wašk) (followed by a verbal noun in the definite form) Armenian: please add this translation if you can Burmese: please add this translation if you can Chinese: Mandarin: (for both forms, particle 了 (le) is used after verb) 就要 (zh) (jiùyào), 快要 (zh) (kuàiyào), 剛要／刚要 (gāngyào) Min Dong: 欲 (buóh) Min Nan: 欲 (zh-min-nan) (beh) Cornish: parys dhe Danish: være ved at (be about to) Dutch: op het punt staan (om) te Esperanto: (expressed by the future participle of the verb) Finnish: fifth infinitive of the verb (different grammatical structure; see usage example in tekemäisillään) French: sur le point de (fr), aller (fr) (auxiliary verb ‘to be about to’) Galician: a punto de Georgian: თითქმის მზად (titkmis mzad) German: gleich (de) (adverb modifying the verb), wollen (de) (auxiliary verb ‘to be about to’) Greek: Ancient Greek: μέλλω (méllō) Hebrew: עמד ל־‎ m (amád l-) Hungarian: készül (hu), szándékában áll Irish: ar tí Old Irish: fri Italian: in procinto di (it) (followed by infinitive), sul punto di (it) (+ inf.), stare per (it) (+ inf.) Japanese: (after verbs in the basic form) ... ところ (ja) (...tokoro), まさに...しようとしている (masa ni ... shiyō to shite iru) Khmer: ស្ទើរតែ (stəə tae) Korean: (으)려고 하다 ((eu)ryeogo hada), (please verify) 막...하려고 하다 (Mak...haryeogo hada) Kurdish: Northern Kurdish: hema hema (ku), hema bêje (ku) Lao: please add this translation if you can Latin: (expressed by the future participle of the verb) Latvian: please add this translation if you can Lithuanian: ruoštis (verb 'prepare to' + inf.), ketinti (verb 'intend to, be about to' + inf.), tuoj (adverb 'at once'), greitai (adverb 'soon') Maori: whano, hono Mongolian: please add this translation if you can Occitan: al mand de Polish: zaraz (pl) Portuguese: no limiar de, prestes a, a ponto de (pt) Russian: собира́ться (ru) (sobirátʹsja) Scottish Gaelic: an impis Spanish: a punto de (es) Tày: ái Thai: กำลังจะ (gam-lang jà) Tibetan: ཁད (khad), ཁད་པ (khad pa), ཆོག་ཆོག (chog chog), verb + གྲབས (verb grabs) Turkish: üzere (tr) Vietnamese: sắp (vi) Welsh: ar (cy), ar fin Yiddish: האַלטן בײַם‎ (haltn baym)

References

1. Lesley Brown, editor-in-chief; William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, editors (2002), “about to”, in The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles, 5th edition, Oxford; New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 7.