From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishsidetrackside‧track /ˈsaɪdtræk/ verb [transitive] 1 SUBJECTto make someone stop doing what they should be doing, or stop talking about what they started talking about, by making them interested in something else Don’t get sidetracked by the audience’s questions.2 American English to delay or stop the progress of something An effort to improve security was sidetracked by budget problems.Grammar Sidetrack is usually passive.→ See Verb table
Examples from the Corpus
sidetrack• But he was by now too aroused to be sidetracked.• He hovered for a moment, but his mind was too full to be sidetracked.• Only the really great champions refuse to be sidetracked by any of these minor problems.• The only way to keep a governor from becoming senator is to sidetrack him off into the presidency.• Kemp and Gore served in Congress together and had seen their presidential ambitions sidetracked in 1988.• Without this the purchaser may be sidetracked into calculations on a whole host of other matters which are not strictly relevant.• Along the way, they intend to sidetrack some of President Bush's most controversial proposals, while compromising on others.• A dozen of the ducks were sidetracked to Northern California, where they became the basis for contemporary duck farms.get sidetracked• Often I can get sidetracked and spend too long on the wards and before I know it, it's late afternoon.• But I think you're right about soaps recently getting sidetracked into men and men's problems.• I once wanted to be a meteorologist but got sidetracked into this. 