false move
Americannoun
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a movement that may be interpreted as threatening.
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an act or action that can cause trouble or damage; mistake.
If the bus driver had made one false move, we would have skidded off the icy road.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
I can’t think about my job or how my body looks when I’m gripping the bar with all my strength, one false move away from hurtling to the mat.
From Slate ● Mar. 11, 2023
And yet he knows: One false move would end all this.
From Seattle Times ● Dec. 20, 2022
Expect the exactitude required here — where a false move can completely ruin a project — to create some tense moments.
From New York Times ● Mar. 7, 2022
“Catastrophe,” my father wrote, “awaits everyone from a single false move, wrong turn, fatal encounter. Every life has such a moment. What distinguishes us is whether — and how — we ever come back.”
From Washington Post ● Jul. 22, 2020
She wasn’t about to make a false move.
From "The Great Gilly Hopkins" by Katherine Paterson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
