touch and go

See synonyms for touch and go on Thesaurus.com
noun
  1. a precarious or delicate state of affairs: It was touch and go there for a while during the operation.

  2. quick action or movement: the touch and go of city traffic.

Origin of touch and go

1
First recorded in 1645–55

Other definitions for touch-and-go (2 of 2)

touch-and-go
[ tuhch-uhn-goh ]

adjective
  1. risky; precarious: a touch-and-go descent down the mountain.

  2. hasty, sketchy, or desultory.

Origin of touch-and-go

2
First recorded in 1805–15

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use touch and go in a sentence

  • START ratification is touch-and-go, too, since, being a treaty, it requires a two-thirds majority to pass.

    The GOP Is Eating Obama's Lunch | Eric Alterman | December 17, 2010 | THE DAILY BEAST
  • And still the grizzled old skipper would go on, though it was touch-and-go every time a sequence of strong seas came howling down.

    The Chequers | James Runciman
  • Saved me a bothering touch-and-go play to get you out here and seem innocent.

  • “Ay, if we are once free,” muttered the master, who was not at all of the touch-and-go school.

  • I was glad that when riding this road in the dark I had not realised it was in quite such a touch-and-go condition.

    Through the Land of the Serb | Mary Edith Durham
  • Watching our chances, the rest of us swarmed up between swells, but it was touch-and-go all the time and took a long while.

    Stories of the Ships | Lewis R. Freeman

British Dictionary definitions for touch and go

touch and go

adjective
  1. (touch-and-go when prenominal) risky or critical: a touch-and-go situation

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for touch and go

touch and go

Uncertain or precarious: “The doctors told the patient that, even though her disease was in remission, from now on it was touch and go.”

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Other Idioms and Phrases with touch and go

touch and go

Extremely uncertain or risky, as in It was touch and go after the surgery; we were not sure he'd survive it, or It was touch and go but they finally gave me a seat on the plane. This idiom implies that a mere touch may cause a calamity. [Early 1800s]

The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.