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Synonyms

on a string

Idioms  

  1. Under someone's control, as in She'll drop everything whenever Sam asks for something—he's got her on a string. This expression, alluding to pulling an animal on a leash, dates from the late 1500s, when it was put as in a string.

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.

Polymers are made of many repeating units linked together, much like beads on a string.

From Science Daily • Jan. 4, 2026

At one point all of the magicians spontaneously do a show for one another, each of them taking part in a can-you-top-this series of illusions strung as close together as popcorn on a string.

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 13, 2025

The single combat involves swinging a conker -- a hardened horse chestnut -- on a string at your opponent's nut with murderous venom, until one is smashed to pieces.

From Barron's • Oct. 17, 2025

In smaller establishments it might be a key dangling on a string and a lump of wood, but it amounts to the same thing.

From BBC • Jan. 25, 2025

He walked with a limp, and he had the ball that wounded him on a string around his neck.

From "My Brother Sam is Dead" by James Lincoln Collier and Christopher Collier

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.