Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- Nautical, an old name for yoke-lines.
- Strings by which children are supported when beginning to walk.
- Hence Restrictions imposed upon freedom of action; intrusive care or custody; restraining guidance.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun Plural form of
leading-string .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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'Your utter inexperience in life,' he continued, 'makes me, though but just giving up leading-strings myself, an adept in the comparison.
Camilla 2008
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He had ridden five miles to join them, merely not to be thought in leading-strings, by staying at Etherington to hear his father; though the name and the excellence of the preaching of Mr. Tyrold, attracted to his church all strangers who had power to reach it: – so vehement in early youth is the eagerness to appear independant, and so general is the belief that all merit must be sought from a distance.
Camilla 2008
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It is Senator Clinton who has spent the past week tying herself to John McCain as fast as McCain could tie himself to the purse and leading-strings of George W. Bush.
David Bromwich: Obama's Run Against McCain Begins Today 2008
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Over what precipices do not men fall, notwithstanding their boasted leading-strings of reason!
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(I mean, can be silent, and only laugh when he sees somebody of more sense laugh, and never approve or condemn but in leading-strings), he may possibly pass in a crowd of gentlemen.
Pamela 2006
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All the men who visited the house were crazy over her, and she kept them all in leading-strings at her feet.
First Love 2006
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He was slow of movement, tied to his Doctor, and perhaps to some other leading-strings.
Vanity Fair 2006
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By figures of speech and apt comparisons he took her mind into leading-strings, compelling her to follow him into wildernesses of which she had never in her life even realized the existence.
Two on a Tower 2006
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He complains that we use him like a child in a go-cart, or a baby with leading-strings, and that he must not be trusted out of our sight.
Pamela 2006
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To say the truth, I wonder she had not insisted on my again wearing leading-strings.
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