Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A tightly stretched rope or a wire, on which acrobats perform high above the ground.
  • noun An extremely precarious course or situation.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A tightly stretched rope or cable on which acrobats perform high above the ground.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun tightly stretched rope or wire on which acrobats perform high above the ground

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Sneider manages to sustain a delicate balance between caricature and identification in a black comedy that, for the most part, successfully walks that peculiarly Latin American tightrope between soap-opera naturalism and slightly feverish myth.

    Chicago Reader 2010

  • She zips past me, in a dramatic movie-starrish way, to the center of my living room, where she proceeds to pace back and forth in short tightrope movements.

    Ambush billy robinson 2011

  • I use an analogy of which I have no actual knowledge — namely tightrope walking.

    Archive 2009-05-01 Lauri 2009

  • I use an analogy of which I have no actual knowledge — namely tightrope walking.

    Alexander McCall Smith in Time Lauri 2009

  • The tightrope is a fitting visual metaphor seen constantly in the movie as the players, as they do in the ‘play within the play’ in Hamlet, wield power of a sort by confronting the court with things that no member of the aristocracy or monarchy could say outright.

    Row Three » Hidden Treasures – Guest Contributors for May - Where Cinema is more than just $100 Million productions 2008

  • … The one-and-done thing, walking the tightrope is a hard thing, a very difficult thing.

    The Globe and Mail - Home RSS feed EDDIE PELLS 2011

  • She revels in Pippi's sly adventures, and she is getting exposed to words like "tightrope" and "expedition" that don't usually come up in everyday conversation and will surely come in handy when she sees them in other texts someday.

    Lisa Guernsey: The Effects of Time-Starved Parents, 25 Years From Now Lisa Guernsey 2010

  • She revels in Pippi's sly adventures, and she is getting exposed to words like "tightrope" and "expedition" that don't usually come up in everyday conversation and will surely come in handy when she sees them in other texts someday.

    Lisa Guernsey: The Effects of Time-Starved Parents, 25 Years From Now Lisa Guernsey 2010

  • She revels in Pippi's sly adventures, and she is getting exposed to words like "tightrope" and "expedition" that don't usually come up in everyday conversation and will surely come in handy when she sees them in other texts someday.

    Lisa Guernsey: The Effects of Time-Starved Parents, 25 Years From Now Lisa Guernsey 2010

  • She revels in Pippi's sly adventures, and she is getting exposed to words like "tightrope" and "expedition" that don't usually come up in everyday conversation and will surely come in handy when she sees them in other texts someday.

    Lisa Guernsey: The Effects of Time-Starved Parents, 25 Years From Now Lisa Guernsey 2010

Comments

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  • The seconds move on (if you watch the clock)

    And the sky grows dark (if you're looking up)

    And the girls move from thrill to thrill on the tightrope walk.

    (Write about love, by Belle and Sebastian)

    September 30, 2010