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tread water
Idioms and Phrases
Expend effort that maintains one's status but does not make much progress toward a goal, as in He was just treading water from paycheck to paycheck . This idiom alludes to the term's literal meaning, that is, “keep one's head above water by remaining upright and pumping the legs.”Example Sentences
She believes much of the evidence and options on how to reform adult social care are already known and worries that "continuing to tread water until a commission concludes will be at the detriment of people's health and well-being".
The American political and media class, Jennings argued, had ignored the fundamentals of inflation and “people feeling like they were barely able to tread water.”
It must be, if the Kings are going to do more than tread water.
So far, the Cougs have largely been able to tread water in his absence, but that might change when conference play starts.
“Our caseloads are out of control. We’re just trying to tread water,” Chad Jenks, the former prosecutor, said in a court hearing in May.
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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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