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on thin ice
Idioms and Phrases
In a precarious or risky position, as in After failing the midterm, he was on thin ice with his math teacher . This metaphor is often rounded out as skate on thin ice , as in He knew he was skating on thin ice when he took his rent money with him to the racetrack . This idiom, which alludes to the danger that treading on thin ice will cause it to break, was first used figuratively by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Prudence (1841): “In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.”Example Sentences
He also played the piano on a session on 8 December, 1980, while working on Yoko Ono's song Walking On Thin Ice.
"Manchester United will probably go above Spurs. A difficult moment for them and the manager is skating on thin ice."
Cannon is on “thin ice,” legal experts Norm Eisen, Danya Perry and Josh Colb wrote in a CNN op-ed.
Wenjie is already on thin ice after taking the fall for a heterodox journalist who passed her a copy of Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring,” and at risk of being physically forced to incriminate other innocent scientists if she stays in prison.
Obita had been on thin ice for much of the match, and a second booking seemed inevitable as he charged carelessly around the pitch, finally coming for a block on Rabbi Matondo.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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