Meaning of rope of sand | Babel Free

Definitions

Something incohesive, flimsy, disconnected or unreliable

idiomatic

Examples

“If any flaw can be detected in this reasoning, its author will be the first to admit⟳ that these Institutes are, from beginning to end⟳, a mere rope of sand; but if no flaw can be detected in it, he begs to crave for them the acknowledgment that they are a chain of adamant.”

“Out of his ideas he may weave cunning theories, beautiful ideals; but he is working with ropes of sand. At the slightest stress⟳, the last⟳ least bit of cohesion flits away, and each idea flies apart from its fellows, while all clamor that he do this thing, or think⟳ this thing, in the ancient and time-honored way. He is only a clay-born; so he bends his neck. He knows further that the clay-born are a pitiful, pitiless majority, and that he may do nothing which they do not do.”

CEFR level