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]

---

Example Sentences

Amsterdam’s canals may be gloriously picturesque, but try finding the elbow room to get a decent photo.

From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 20, 2025

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

They're a little bit more irritated because they don't have any elbow room, where somebody puts the tray down in front of them and they're irritated because they don't have space.

From Salon • Nov. 12, 2023

Despite the lack of elbow room, they were busy tossing torn bits of paper over the side, creating a steady rain of confetti onto the "greatest and most significant" parade in New York City's history.

From Nazi Saboteurs by Samantha Seiple

Related Words

• breathing space
• latitude