elbow room

Idioms  

1. Enough space to move about, as in Two hundred on the stage? There won't be any elbow room. This term alludes to having enough room to extend one's elbows. [Late 1500s]

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

elbow room

“Viewed positively, what the American revolution did was to give the common man a voice, a veto, elbow room and a refuge from the rampaging presumptions of his ‘betters.’

From The Wall Street Journal ● May 19, 2026

The crew of four — in the dim green glow of their spacecraft, with no more elbow room than a Sprinter van — entered a profound solitude few have ever experienced.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 9, 2026

Yeah, you don’t have a lot of elbow room.

From Slate ● Dec. 10, 2023

But conventional accelerators require plenty of elbow room -- kilometers -- making them expensive and limiting their presence to a handful of national labs and universities.

From Science Daily ● Nov. 27, 2023

You have a tendency not to give anybody elbow room in your mind for their ideas, no matter how silly you think they are.”

From "Go Set a Watchman: A Novel" by Harper Lee

Related Words

• breathing space
• latitude