feel one's way

Idioms  

1. Proceed cautiously, as in Until we know who we're dealing with, we'll have to feel our way. This expression alludes to groping by touch when one is unable to see. [Early 1600s] Also see feel for, def. 1.

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Example Sentences

If but a friendly hint be thrown, 'Tis easier then to feel one's way.

From Faust — Part 1 by Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von

Expansion has so made the English what they are—for good or for ill, but on the whole for good—that one doesn't quite feel one's way to say for one's country "No—I'll have none of it!"

From The Letters of Henry James (volume I) by James, Henry

A month is too short a time in which to feel one's way in London.

From The Three Impostors or The Transmutations by Machen, Arthur

I should conceive it would not be very difficult to feel one's way thro' these Plays, and distinguish every where the metal from the clay.

From Eighteenth Century Essays on Shakespeare by Smith, David Nichol

If but a friendly hint be thrown, 'Tis easier than to feel one's way.

From The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 01 Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English. by Francke, Kuno