Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to leave quickly, to run off, to escape.

1919		in T.F. Farrell Hist. of 1st US Engineers 119: Then down to the stables and feed those damn mules, / And ‘high-tail’ to the chow line [HDAS].
1925		K. Mullen ‘Westernisms’ in AS I:3 149: A sentence like, ‘I high-tailed out of there when I found out what a hay-wire outfit she was,’ is far more Western than Tom Mix on a snorting horse.
1933		G. Milburn No More Trumpets 33: I was high-tailing it down toward the engine acrost them box cars.
1944		D. Runyon Runyon à la Carte 58: It will hightail it out of there quicker than anybody can say scat.
1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 245: His pet ferret rushed out and bit someone on the ankle; and [...] everybody hightailed out the door.
1957		Kerouac On The Road (1972) 137: His pet ferret bit an elegant teacup queer on the ankle and everybody hightailed it out the door.
1966		M. Rumaker Exit 3 and Other Stories 91: Wait’ll Marrie gets here and we’ll hightail it to the Red-eye.
1973		L. Bangs in Psychotic Reactions (1988) 125: Next he hightails to Angie’s to apologize for being pigheaded last night.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 47: The third Go-Boy hightailed it out of range and made for the bush.
1983		R. Price Breaks 295: I started shivering, so I proceded to hightail it back to the room.
1997		L. Davies Candy 268: Almost as quickly as we’d got it, we sold it, and high-tailed it out of the battlefield.
2009		N.Y. Rev. of Books 26 Feb.–11 Mar. 5/1: He and Ella had to hightail it out of town.
2010		L. Redhead Thrill City [ebook] [I] hightailed it to the doorway and almost smacked into him coming through.
2012		M. McBride Frank Sinatra in a Blender [ebook] Steve Jr. was about to get pinched so he hightailed it down to Panama Beach.
2015		L. McInerney Glorious Heresies 291: Left a ton of debt behind her, locked the doors and hightailed it.
2018		G. Disher Kill Shot [ebook] They escaped charges but suspicion stuck to them and they hightailed it south.
2020		(con. 1991-94) W. Boyle City of Margins 36: [She] hightailed it to Maine on a whim with a hippie she met at a fucking Phish show.
2021		L. McInerney Rules of Revelation 13: ‘[A] long way down the list of my headaches is the minstrel boy hightailing it on me’.