leapfrog

noun

1. (countable, uncountable)A game, often played by children, in which a player leaps like a frog over the back of another person who has stooped over. One variation of the game involves a number of people lining up in a row and bending over. The last person in the line then vaults forward over each of the others until they reach the front of the line, whereupon they also bend over. The process is then repeated.

   “La Poſte (jeu d'Enfant) Skip-frog, or Leap-frog, a Boyiſh Play.”

   “Are they [female students] not, indeed, generally wanting in that power of healthy stimulation which, exerted at proper intervals and sustained for proper periods, at once develops the mental powers, and sends forth the young boy-student from his Greek construing and his Latin hexameters to his leap-frog and cricket, with a zeal and an energy which he will never feel again when the school-room door has finally closed on him?”

   “Madame could read with native grace and commendable fluency, making nimble leapfrogs over the heads of the exceptionally hard passages, but Leam had to spell every third word, and then she made a mess of it.”

2. (British, attributive, countable, uncountable, usually)The process by which a case is appealed or allowed to be appealed directly to a supreme court, bypassing an intermediate appellate court.

   “The Supreme Court can hear appeals direct from the High Court under the ‘leapfrog’ procedure. This procedure is reserved for matters certified by the Supreme Court to be of general public importance—the type of issue which would ultimately be appealed from the Court of Appeal in any event. There are normally a few of these direct appeals from the High Court each year.”

   “An appeal to the Court of Cassation can be filed against judgments issued on (first) appeal, which means judgments issued in general by a court of appeals, even though the Code provides for judgments issued by courts of first instance that can be reviewed by the Court of Cassation through a sort of ‘leapfrog’ appeal; […]”

verb

1. (transitive)To jump over some obstacle, as in the game of leapfrog.

   “Zachary Black jumps out from behind a bush. My heart leapfrogs up my throat, climbs out of my mouth and scarpers down the street.”

2. (transitive)To overtake.

   “This new product will leapfrog the competition.”

   “If the following bus has no passengers who wish to get off, it may leapfrog the leader but will face the same delay at the next stop.”

   “Blackpool thus achieved their first double over Liverpool since the 1946–47 season but more significantly they leapfrogged their opponents in the table with a game in hand.”

   “Technology is developing so quickly that it occasionally leapfrogs over earlier technologies. For example, many areas of Australia did not have telephone service because they did not have a grid or wire system to deliver the signals. However, when cell phone technology became implemented Australians quickly incorporated this technology and leapfrogged over the grid system telephone requirements.”

   “There's rain in the air, maybe the spring is turning back into winter now. […] Where nature leapfrogs spring and goes straight to summer, letting everything skip childhood. Maybe to avoid the torments and vulnerability of youth?”

3. (intransitive)To progress.

   “[W]hen we emerged refueled from an air-conditioned café about forty-five minutes later, the temperature had leapfrogged at least ten degrees.”

4. (British, transitive)To appeal or allow to be appealed (a case) directly to a supreme court, bypassing an intermediate appellate court.
5. (transitive)To advance by engaging the enemy with one unit while another moves further forward.

   “In late November and early December, General [William] Rosecrans juggled his units in preparation for the upcoming drive against [Braxton] Bragg. Among the changes, Sill's brigade relinquished its position in the advance of the army as other units leap-frogged south to the head of the army.”

name

1. (humorous, slang)Laphroaig whisky.

   “I poured myself some more Glen Generic then saw that somebody had brought a bottle of cask-strength Laphroaig, so abandoned my first glass and poured another of the Leapfrog and went to the fridge for some water.”

   “Laphroaig. The good old Leapfrog. That would do the trick. He knew it was supposed to taste better if it was watered slightly, but Boddice preferred it raw and unadulterated.”