go off half cocked BrE
go off at half cock BrE

Just don't go off half cocked and get serious over her.

"I've never done anything like this in my life, you know, gone off half cocked.

They knew better than to go off half cocked.

But we'll - we don't like to go off half cocked.

I haven't that excuse-I simply went off half cocked again.

"But I'm not going off half cocked and pinning a murder charge on him, either.

The derivation and meaning of go off half cocked is far off the mark.

The phrase "don't go off half cocked" has its origins in this type of weapon.

Still, I did kind of go off half cocked, considering she was just beginning to get the idea of letting me boss the show.

'Now listen to me: you're a nice guy, Jim, but you go off half cocked.

I go off half cocked and make mistakes, but those Brains don't-they can't."

Mr. Hochman later added, "We're not going to go off half cocked."

"Don't go off half cocked," I said.

"Jim, you're going off half cocked.

The Chartered Fenris Company went off half cocked with colonization, then found they couldn't turn a profit.

Lederer understood the expression go off half cocked to mean 'futile gesture' because the flintlock is unlikely to spark.

I heard some Marines went off half cocked and-" "It's your people we've got back there in the tank, Mac."

And it made me uncomfortable, because I wasn't doing anything, and because there was always the danger that Wolfe would go off half cocked when he was keeping things to himself.

"There is a term," I said to Captain Janice Hill, who nod- ded, "One unfamiliar to this era, but yet known in mine of 'going off half cocked'."

Astute politicians do not go off half cocked: they test the water, collect their facts, identify the support systems, undermine the opposition's case, find the coalitions, understand the 'influencers' or the roles that carry weight.

"My concern is that when we deal with it, we are going to go off half cocked," he said in debate last Tuesday, when the Senate approved mandatory testing of immigrants for infection with the AIDS virus.

I think that as important as it is for us to formulate the proper response to the new situation, it's equally important that we not go off half cocked and adopt radically new policies of our own before we're certain we're justified to do so."

Grant pushed the speaker button, and Ellie heard a raspy old-man's voice speaking rapidly: "-hell of an annoyance from some EPA fellow, seems to have gone off half cocked, all on his own, running around the country talking to people, stirring up things.

Going off at half cock is dangerous, not futile.

Zayoud might have gone off at half cock, but there should be a nice welcome waiting for, your plane."