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

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

From Time Magazine Archive

Citizens of Sofia were 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

In support of Candidate Paul Johnson, Mrs. Bilbo last week issued the following signed statement: Every leading Briton seemed on the qui vive last week to thwart Benito Mussolini's candid designs on Ethiopia.

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