on the qui vive

Idioms  

1. On the alert, vigilant, as in The police have been warned to be on the qui vive for terrorists. This expression, containing the French words for “[long] live who?” originated as a sentinel's challenge to determine a person's political sympathies. The answer expected of allies was something like vive le roi (“long live the king”). It was taken over into English with its revised meaning in the early 1700s, the first recorded use being in 1726.

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Example Sentences

Recently two members of the British Security Police dressed themselves up in German uniforms and started out in broad British daylight to see whether Britain was on the qui vive.

From Time Magazine Archive

But events darkly occurring in Manchuria kept all the Russias on the qui vive.

From Time Magazine Archive

The Angora Government, with its five senses on the qui vive, is anxious to draw America into the next meeting of the Lausanne Conference, scheduled to take place on April 23.

From Time Magazine Archive

Royalists, always on the qui vive for a disturbance, attacked it for reasons of their own.

From Time Magazine Archive

She looked quite stunning as she walked across the dining room to the table, not at all unlike a girl on the qui vive appropriate to a big college weekend.

From "Franny and Zooey" by J. D. Salinger

Related Words

• afraid
• agitated
• anguished
• anxious
• apprehensive
• edgy
• fearful
• impatient
• insecure
• irritable
• jittery
• nervous
• precarious
• restless
• shaky
• strained
• suspicious
• tense
• troubled
• uncomfortable