leading strings
Americanplural noun
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strings for leading and supporting a child learning to walk.
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excessively restraining guidance.
His parents tried to keep him in leading strings, but he finally married and moved away.
Etymology
Origin of leading strings
First recorded in 1670–80
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.
Right or wrong, Britain is not responsible for it, and Mr. Wallace's picture of the United States in leading strings is quite fanciful.
From Time Magazine Archive
For freedom of mind means mental power capable of independent exercise, emancipated from the leading strings of others, not mere unhindered external operation.
From How We Think by John Dewey
Meanwhile the English drama, freed from its leading strings, will find its own way for itself.
From The English Stage Being an Account of the Victorian Drama by Augustin Filon
There will be the disloyal deeds that made us a constant source of care and wonderment to the angels who watched us, and the cowardice that kept us in leading strings to conformity.
From Rosemary and Rue by Amber
Enraged at being accused of being held in leading strings by three half-crazed women, the emperor signed the warrant for their exile to the great joy of the envious courtiers.
From Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, the Crimea, the Caucasus, &c. by Xavier Hommaire de Hell
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.
