toe the line

1. Also, toe the mark. Meet a standard, abide by the rules, as in The new director will make us toe the line, I'm sure, or At daycare Brian has to toe the mark, but at home his mother's quite lenient. This idiom refers to runners in a race placing their toes on the starting line and not moving until the starting signal. Its figurative use dates from the early 1800s.

Example Sentences

For the first time, the 40-year-old running legend will toe the line at the New York City Marathon.

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And when people like Kimmel don’t toe the line, they — or the institutions that employ them — should be threatened, intimidated and silenced.

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Johnson has toed the line in recent weeks, calling for “maximum transparency” around the Epstein case while doing his best to tamp down the uproar over recent actions by the DOJ.

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That said, Aurienne does toe the line between aloof and arrogantly unlikable.

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“Fascism is good for business if you toe the line. Popular podcasts became tribal and divisive years ago,” he wrote.

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