seat-of-the-pants

adjective

ˈsēt-əv-ṯẖə-ˈpan(t)s 

: employing or based on personal experience, judgment, and effort rather than technological aids or formal theory

seat-of-the-pants navigation

a seat-of-the-pants decision

Examples of seat-of-the-pants in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Scott LeTellier, the chief operating officer for the World Cup ‘94 organising committee, was at Soldier Field and says the entire afternoon was a seat-of-the-pants affair. — Jack Lang, New York Times, 9 June 2026

Currently, vibe coding and being a vibe coder are an ad hoc and seat-of-the-pants foray. — Lance Eliot, Forbes.com, 18 Sep. 2025

The only fly in the ointment was the inability of the hawks to create an empirical, granular analysis to back up their seat-of-the-pants judgments. — Jim Cramer, CNBC, 24 Aug. 2025

Bruckheimer remembers the shoot as tough but exhilarating, a product of Scott’s notoriously seat-of-the-pants directing style. — Josh Rottenberg, Los Angeles Times, 25 June 2025

Listen to this article For decades, state legislators have passed two-year budgets in order to avoid haphazard, seat-of-the-pants, one-year changes. — Christopher Keating, Hartford Courant, 28 May 2025

The first few weeks of the pandemic spurred more seat-of-the-pants innovation to broadcast operations and engineering than had been done since the days of Sid Caesar and Milton Berle in the early 1950s. — Cynthia Littleton, Variety, 12 Mar. 2025

And if the machine takes over too much of the work, the driver might grow complacent or lose their seat-of-the-pants flying (or driving) skills. — IEEE Spectrum, 7 Jan. 2019

Word History

First Known Use

1942, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for seat-of-the-pants

• ants
• aunts
• cants
• chants
• grants
• krantz
• lants
• pants
• plants
• rants
• slants
• confidants