leading-string

Definitions

Strings with which children were formerly guided while they were learning to walk.

historical, plural-normally

Equivalents

Examples

“her lover [...] treated me in all respects as a perfect infant. To say⟳ the truth, I wonder⟳ she had not insisted on my again wearing leading-strings.”

“Power is a debt to the people: but as yet we walk⟳ with the leading-strings of prejudice, strong to confine the steps, which they never should attempt⟳ to guide⟳.”

“Every man, however brief or inglorious may have⟳ been his academical career, must remember⟳ with kindness and tenderness the old university comrades and days. The young man’s life is just beginning: the boy’s leading-strings are cut⟳, and he has all the novel delights and dignities of freedom.”

“Highly protective – Louis wore leading strings until he was seven, a corset for his posture until he was ten – his guardians cocooned him from a wide range of normal childhood experiences.”

CEFR level