Advertisement
Advertisement
on a string
Under someone's control, as in She'll drop everything whenever Sam asks for something—he's got her on a string. This expression, alluding to pulling an animal on a leash, dates from the late 1500s, when it was put as in a string.
Example Sentences
In the second, he needed just four pitches to retire the side in order, capitalizing on a string of well-located offerings for a lightning-quick inning.
In smaller establishments it might be a key dangling on a string and a lump of wood, but it amounts to the same thing.
“When you see instruments up close, you hear the bow on a string, you hear the grit. I’ve worked with filmmakers surprised to hear what real live music sounds like, because so many people have never had that experience. It’s a huge part of keeping real music alive.“
Scott Wardlaw, 76, president of the Altadena Christmas Tree Lane Assn., pulls on a string of lights while hanging lights on the massive deodar cedars on Santa Rosa Avenue.
Their study on mouse brain cells shows that the cells' axons -- the armlike structures that reach out and exchange information with other brain cells -- are not the cylindrical tubes often pictured in books and on websites but more like pearls on a string.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Browse