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bide one's time
Idioms and Phrases
Wait for the opportune moment, as in The cat sat in front of the mousehole, biding its time . This phrase employs the verb to bide in the sense of “to wait for,” a usage dating from about a.d. 950 and surviving mainly in this locution.Example Sentences
Her tactics even earned their own verb: “Merkeln,” meaning to dither or bide one’s time.
Her approach even earned its own verb: “Merkeln,” meaning to dither or bide one’s time.
Vladimir: One can bide one’s time.
For years, after its emergence from hard-line Marxism in the late 1980s, China stuck to reformist leader Deng Xiaoping’s dictum to “keep a low profile and bide one’s time, while also getting things done.”
To stand long before closed doors of opportunity and keep serene; to see work waiting, see others working, and in patience and self-control to bide one's time,—that is more than to do any work; it is to be a man.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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