tightrope walk

• tightrope-walk

tightrope walk (plural tightrope walks)

1. An instance of walking on a tightrope.
   • 2011 August 5, “Down to the Wire”, in The New York Times‎^[1], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 17 June 2022:

     Stunts like tightrope walks and barrel plunges were later banned at the falls, with fines of up to $10,000.

   • 2020 November 20, David S. Reynolds, “Channeling Lincoln’s ideological balancing act will lead Biden to success”, in The Washington Post‎^[2], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 November 2020:

     In 1859, French acrobat Charles Blondin dazzled Americans with his tightrope walks, the most famous of which were his repeated crossings of Niagara Falls.

   • 2023 January 26, Nardine Saad, “New ‘Succession’ trailer teases ‘tightrope walk’ on a razor in for Roy siblings”, in Los Angeles Times‎^[3], Los Angeles, Calif.: Los Angeles Times Communications, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 January 2023:

     As for the Logan siblings, Kendall likens his latest showdown with his father to “a tightrope walk on a straight razor ... Five-hundred-foot reputational drop.”

2. (figuratively) This term needs a definition. Please help out and add a definition, then remove the text {{rfdef}}.
   • 1993 October 26, Steve Lohr, “Present at the Transition of I.B.M.”, in The New York Times‎^[4], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 26 May 2015:

     Mr. Donofrio's strategy is a tightrope walk. He is trying to preserve as much of the traditional mainframe business as possible, while remaking the big machines, replacing their large, power-hungry processors with more efficient computer-on-a-chip microprocessors, which drive work stations and personal computers.

   • 2015 March 1, Naseer Ganai, Kumar Vikram, “BJP and PDP join hands to govern J&K... but new Chief Minister Mufti Mohammad Sayeed mars the day by thanking 'Pakistan, Hurriyat and militants'”, in Daily Mail‎^[5], London: DMG Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 20 July 2015:

     The RSS mouthpiece, meanwhile, termed this as a historical opportunity but cautioned that running the government would be a tightrope walk. “Though running this government will be a tightrope walk, especially for the PDP, if interests of the people of J&K are kept in mind, this will be a historic opportunity,” said the Organiser, adding “keeping away from the pressures of separatist tendencies, focusing completely on development and providing transparency in governance would be key in this regard.”

   • 2017 November 3, David Von Drehle, “Queen Ivanka’s uncomfortable throne”, in The Washington Post‎^[6], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 4 November 2017:

     Not since Philippe Petit stepped onto a wire surreptitiously rigged between the towers of the late, lamented World Trade Center in 1974 has there been a tightrope walk as perilous and as public as Ivanka Trump’s.

tightrope walk (third-person singular simple present tightrope walks, present participle tightrope walking, simple past and past participle tightrope walked)

1. Alternative form of tightrope-walk.
   • 1945 September 22, “Good GI Tactics, but—Police Charge Veteran Applied Commando Stunts in Burglary”, in The New York Times‎^[7], New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 16 June 2025:

     John Glass, 23 years old, a waiter, of 716 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, put the commando training he learned as a soldier to use yesterday, according to the police of the Bergen Street Station, who said that he scaled a one-story brick building, tightrope walked along a cornice, forced down a window and entered Riche's Jewelry Shop at 362 Livingston Street.

   • 1983 November 21, Charles Fishman, “The Pilgrimage”, in The Washington Post‎^[8], Washington, D.C.: The Washington Post Company, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 28 August 2017:

     One boy tried to tightrope walk through the fountain until he was tugged back by a friend.

   • 2011 June 16, Alison Flood, “Colum McCann wins 2011 Impac Dublin prize”, in Alan Rusbridger, editor, The Guardian‎^[9], London: Guardian News & Media, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 19 June 2015:

     Set in New York in 1974, as Philippe Petit tightrope walks between the newly built Twin Towers, it tells of interlocking lives in the world below, from a radical Irish monk in the Bronx to an Upper East Side housewife.