Tightrope-walk

noun, verb

noun, verb ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    Alternative form of tightrope walk. alt-of, alternative

    "[Marshall] Goldberg then rounded his own right end and tightrope-walked the side chalk mark for 18 yards and a first down on the Washington 35."

Verb
  1. 1
    To walk on a tightrope or on (something) as though on one. ambitransitive

    "It was just 78 years ago that […] [Charles] Blondin tightrope-walked across the Niagara, […]"

  2. 2
    To take a perilous course between alternatives. figuratively

    "In his speech tonight, McCain, who has backed [George Walker] Bush on such controversial issues as tax cuts and the Iraq war, will have to tightrope-walk his way between saluting Bush and making it clear that he’s something different, that he represents change."

Synonyms

All synonyms
tightrope

Example

More examples

"It was just 78 years ago that […] [Charles] Blondin tightrope-walked across the Niagara, […]"

Etymology

The verb is a back-formation from tightrope walking.

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.