between a rock and a hard place

Cultural  

1. Faced with two equally dangerous or difficult choices or circumstances: “Trying to please two supervisors is like being between a rock and a hard place.” This phrase dates from the early twentieth century.

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between a rock and a hard place Idioms  

1. Also,. Between two equally difficult or unacceptable choices. For example, Trying to please both my boss and his supervisor puts me between a rock and a hard place. The rock and hard place version is the newest of these synonymous phrases, dating from the early 1900s, and alludes to being caught or crushed between two rocks. The oldest is Scylla and Charybdis, which in Homer's Odyssey signified a monster on a rock (Scylla) and a fatal whirlpool (Charybdis), between which Odysseus had to sail through a narrow passage. It was used figuratively by the Roman writer Virgil and many writers since. The devil in devil and deep blue sea, according to lexicographer Charles Earle Funk, referred to a seam around a ship's hull near the waterline, which, if a sailor was trying to caulk it in heavy seas, would cause him to fall overboard. Others disagree, however, and believe the phrase simply alludes to a choice between hellfire with the devil and drowning in deep waters.

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Example Sentences

“She’s between a rock and a hard place on fiscal,” he notes.

From Barron's

You said that Netanyahu almost lost his coalition, and many people have observed that basically he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

From Slate

“It’s like being between a rock and a hard place,” said Adam White, marketing manager at Eclipse Nordic Hot Springs.

From Washington Post

“The ECB was basically caught between a rock and a hard place. It had already signalled to the market at its last meeting that a 50-bp hike could be expected, so to back-track now probably risked sending a message that worries over financial stability and contagion from the U.S. bank failures is seen as a serious enough concern that it is trumping the need to continue tightening policy as it battles inflation.”

From Reuters

“It’s like we’re between a rock and a hard place,” Ms. Shields said.

From New York Times

Related Words

• crunch
• dilemma
• pickle
• predicament
• quandary