draw the line

Cultural  

1. To set a limit, as of acceptable behavior: “Phil sometimes drank a few beers, but generally he knew when to draw the line.”

---

Example Sentences

Decisions about where to draw the line determine when an algorithmic suspicion becomes a real-world police action, even though the public rarely sees or debates how those thresholds are set.

From Salon • May 12, 2026

"So, as much as they don't want to talk about the past, it is key to understanding that in order to be able to rewrite the narrative and draw the line, in my opinion."

From BBC • Apr. 22, 2026

"This study shows that there's a speciation 'gray zone' that can make it hard to draw the line," Chan said.

From Science Daily • Mar. 9, 2026

“It’s hard not to be inspired by what people have done before you, but you also have to draw the line somewhere,” Finn says.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 4, 2026

It is often difficult to work out quite where to draw the line when dealing with actor’s concepts.

From "The Invention of Science" by David Wootton