shoestring
Americannoun
-
another word for shoelace
-
informal
-
a very small or petty amount of money (esp in the phrase on a shoestring )
-
( as modifier )
a shoestring budget
-
Etymology
Origin of shoestring
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.
Their shoestring budget, McCullough shows, forced the Wrights into creative experimentation, demanding the “ingenuity, as well as patience” required to test ideas that were “like nothing done by anyone until then.”
From The Wall Street Journal • May 11, 2026
Rather, he’s using a shoestring budget to concoct left-of-center sights that feel like a peek into a specific Los Angeles netherworld.
From Salon • Apr. 5, 2026
"It was all done on a shoestring budget," he said.
From BBC • Sep. 23, 2025
“Any abortion recovery room I’ve ever been in has the good tea,” Krajewski told me, adding that it’s usually staff who pay for these refreshments since clinics often operate on shoestring budgets.
From Slate • Sep. 7, 2025
The coach looked like an old gangster: broken nose, a scar on his cheek like a stitched shoestring.
From "The Chocolate War" by Robert Cormier
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.
