on tiptoe
Idioms-
Eagerly anticipating something, as in The children were on tiptoe before the birthday party . [Late 1500s]
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Moving stealthily, warily, as in They went down the hall on tiptoe . [Mid-1700s] Both usages transfer standing on one's toes to a particular reason for doing so; def. 2 alludes to moving more quietly in this fashion.
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.
Our spring had always arrived on tiptoe and sat in the back row, the opposite of the ebullient temperate-zone season.
From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 29, 2022
But if visitors stand on tiptoe to look past the marvelous fresco over the home’s jagged walls, they’ll see how the back rooms remain embedded under the newly “stabilized” unexcavated edge of Pompeii.
From Seattle Times • Feb. 20, 2022
On my way back, I again passed the Pavilions where, if you stood on tiptoe, you could see that there were waterflowers in bloom in the aquatic courtyard below.
From Washington Post • Jun. 4, 2020
The mother robin, who flies off with an angry twitter when my husband stands on tiptoe to peek into the nest, has shuffled the arrangement of the eggs.
From Salon • May 9, 2020
She raised up on tiptoe and gave me a cool, soft kiss that tasted of Popsicles.
From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt
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.
