up in the air

Idioms  

1. Not settled, uncertain, as in The proposal to build a golf course next to the airport is still up in the air. This metaphoric expression likens something floating in the air to an unsettled matter. Put as in the air from the mid-1700s, it acquired up in the first half of the 1900s.

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Example Sentences

It’s more like throwing the game board up in the air to see how it might come down.

From The Wall Street Journal

Both say the situation was made more complicated by the timing - Audrey was heavily pregnant and their deal with Spotify was up in the air.

From BBC

But whether the chip industry is dealing with a minor hiccup or a big problem is still up in the air.

From MarketWatch

Sometimes dogs clear across the kennel will hold their bones up in the air, look at each other, raise their hair, and start growling at each other, posturing and bragging about their bones.

From Literature

Though the answers to these questions are very much up in the air, we can be confident that AI will profoundly affect Wall Street.

From Barron's