🗓️ Idiom: Cover all Your Bases (v)
💬 Meaning
- To prepare for all possible problems or situations.
- To take steps to make sure everything is under control.
🧠 Example Sentences
- The manager asked us to double-check everything, just to cover our bases.
- By preparing two backup plans, she was covering her bases.
- The legal team reviewed every detail to cover all their bases before the launch.
🏛️ Origin
This idiom comes from the sport of baseball. In the game, players must protect all the bases to stop the other team from scoring. In business, it means preparing for all parts of a situation, so nothing is missed or goes wrong.
📝 Practice Exercises
1. Fill in the blank:
To make sure there were no surprises during the presentation, he double-checked his notes to __________.
Answer
cover all his bases
2. Choose the correct meaning of “covering all your bases”:
A) Focusing only on one thing
B) Getting ready for every possible problem
C) Ignoring minor details
Answer
B) Getting ready for every possible problem
3. Rewrite the sentence using the idiom:
“We prepared extra supplies in case anything went wrong.” → Change the sentence using: cover all our bases
Answer
We prepared extra supplies to cover all our bases.
ℹ️ Other Useful Pages
Rob is a CELTA qualified English teacher with 15 years of international experience. He has a BSc and PGDip from Loughborough and St Andrews universities in the UK. He has taught in Thailand and Saudi Arabia and now works with professionals worldwide.
