tightrope
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
noun
-
a rope or cable stretched taut above the ground on which acrobats walk or perform balancing feats
-
to be in a difficult situation that demands careful and considered behaviour
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of tightrope
Explanation
A tightrope is a thin, tightly stretched wire or rope meant to be walked on. If you go to the circus, you may see acrobats doing tricks on tightropes high above the ground. Some tightrope walkers hold long sticks that help them balance, and others do somersaults, juggle, or dance, all while balancing on the tightrope. Another kind of acrobatics is slackrope walking, performed on loose or slack wires or ropes. The technical term for the art of walking on a tightrope or slackrope is funambulism — and a person who does it is a funambulist.
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.
See Examples For:
They picked their way along the top of a crumbling dry-stone wall like tightrope walkers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 30, 2026
Software companies are walking a tightrope in 2026 amid fears that artificial-intelligence tools will disrupt their businesses.
From Barron's ● May 29, 2026
I love watching comedians navigate that impossible little tightrope between structure and chaos: character work, timing, escalation, commitment and, ideally, a killer ending.
From Salon ● May 25, 2026
Successive US administrations have walked a diplomatic tightrope by maintaining that relationship alongside building ties with Beijing.
From BBC ● May 15, 2026
They moved toward the ice-cream parlor like tightrope walkers, as dirilled by the possibility of a slip as by the maintenance of tension and balance.
From "Sula" by Toni Morrison
It was the tightest of tightropes for the DUP leader.
From BBC ● Feb. 18, 2023
Although NBC takes more chances these days than CBS and ABC, networks generally don’t walk tightropes without a dozen safety nets.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 24, 2022
You can stick on the path or walk on the rocky beach among the driftwood that adults use for benches and children pretend are tightropes.
From Seattle Times ● Jul. 15, 2022
Yes, the audience saw some of those naughty early things—for example, “Ballet,” from 1968, in which a dancer walked through the air on two tightropes.
From The New Yorker ● Jun. 24, 2019
Street performers played accordions and walked low tightropes.
From "Genuine Fraud" by E. Lockhart
He rolled right from the pursuit, waved his hand downfield and found Williams underneath at the Kentucky 12; Williams then tightroped the sideline to the end zone to make it 28-7.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 12, 2023
In the fourth, Tucker Barnhart and Akil Baddoo both reached on softly hit infield singles before Buehler again tightroped out of the inning, rolling Eric Haase into an inning-ending double-play in the next at-bat.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 1, 2022
As Roberts tightroped along the sideline, eluding tackles, the Jets bench went berserk, with players tossing water into the air.
From New York Times ● Sep. 14, 2018
Director Chanelle Aponte Pearson used the phrase “radical honesty” to describe the tightroped vulnerability involved in telling a partner about wanting to be romantically involved with more than one person.
From The Guardian ● Feb. 15, 2017
Saunders tightroped his way out of trouble throughout the night and allowed only run in 52 3 innings to earn the win.
From Washington Post ● Oct. 6, 2012
On third-and-three from the Washington 28, Jack took off on a scoring run that included a stiff-arm and 360-degree spin to elude three defenders before tightroping the sideline en route to the end zone.
From Seattle Times ● Nov. 9, 2014
Out of breath and sweaty, we wandered into the cracked lot in front of Kip’s Minute Market, tightroping the cement parking blocks one after another, until Irene said, “I want strawberry Bubblicious.”
From "The Miseducation of Cameron Post" by emily m. danforth
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.
