From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishget onto somebody/something phrasal verb1 TCCONTACT somebodyspeak/write to somebody informal to speak or write to someone I’ll get onto my lawyer about this.2 FIND OUTlearn about somebody informal to find out about someone who has been doing something wrong How did the police get onto him?3 CHOOSEbe elected to be elected as a member of a committee, a political organization etc She was quite keen to get onto the management committee.4 SUBJECTtalk about something to begin to talk about a subject after you have been discussing something else After a few minutes they got onto the subject of the election.5 do something informal to start dealing with something Right, I’ll get onto it straight away. → get→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
get onto • Our guys in Austin are more interested in open systems, and the fastest screaming performance it can get onto a microprocessor.• But we had got onto a subject I do happen to know something about.• You also have to take care if you get onto an older horse afterwards.• The sappers succeeded in getting onto Cu Chi air base and destroyed several helicopters.• The hunt recently fenced off 6 and a half miles of the M40 to stop foxes getting onto it.• Several times the next day I repeated the warning, and again that night as I got onto the bed with him.• They were restored a few hours later, after some local television and newspaper reporters got onto the story. 