on thin ice

Idioms and Phrases

In a precarious or risky position, as in After failing the midterm, he was on thin ice with his math teacher . This metaphor is often rounded out as skate on thin ice , as in He knew he was skating on thin ice when he took his rent money with him to the racetrack . This idiom, which alludes to the danger that treading on thin ice will cause it to break, was first used figuratively by Ralph Waldo Emerson in his essay Prudence (1841): “In skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed.”

Related Words

• ambiguous
• ambivalent
• dubious
• erratic
• hazy
• hesitant
• insecure
• precarious
• questionable
• risky
• unclear
• undecided
• undetermined
• unpredictable
• unreliable
• unresolved
• unsettled
• unsure
• vague