on tiptoe
Idioms-
Eagerly anticipating something, as in The children were on tiptoe before the birthday party . [Late 1500s]
-
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.
Eight-year-old Willow Lopez stood on tiptoe, her chin hooked over the 4-foot steel fence and her heart doing atomic drops as the aging wrestler climbed into the ring at the Sonoma County Fair.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2023
My knuckles were raw from kneading, my abs sore from standing on tiptoe to get enough leverage to press down on the dough.
From Salon ● Mar. 18, 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
Deakin’s book begins with an ecstatic moat swim in summer rain, amid “water sprites springing up on tiptoe like bright pins over the surface.”
From The New Yorker ● Jan. 20, 2020
She stood on tiptoe and reached into the back of the cabinets.
From "Healer of the Water Monster" by Brian Young
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.
