on tiptoe

Idioms  

1. Eagerly anticipating something, as in The children were on tiptoe before the birthday party . [Late 1500s]

2. 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

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

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

A boy stood on tiptoe to gaze through an eyepiece at an image of the world as a baby octopus would see it: dark, blue and utterly empty.

From Washington Post • Nov. 28, 2017

He was talking, but no sound came from his mouth; searchers milled curiously in the snowy background, raising on tiptoe to jeer silently at the camera.

From "The Secret History" by Donna Tartt