Well attestedNamed from the place
get out of Dodge
verb · first attested 1960s
The phrase is younger than the television show, not the cattle town.
To leave quickly, especially somewhere dangerous.
37.7597°N -100.0183°W · Q647127
Record
- Relationship
- Named from the place
- Confidence
- Well attestedThe place link is the standard scholarly account.
- Attested
- 1960s
- Part of speech
- verb
Explanations here are written for this atlas. Dictionary text is not copied; the sources are linked so the claim can be checked.
- Step 1
Dodge City
- In English
get out of Dodge
Dodge City, Kansas, was a railhead for Texas cattle drives in the 1870s and 1880s and employed Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson as lawmen. The idiom spread through the western Gunsmoke, set in Dodge and broadcast from 1952 to 1975, where characters are repeatedly told to get out of town. It only becomes common in general American English afterward.
United States
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