Word of the Day

: June 19, 2007

shoestring

noun SHOO-string

What It Means

1 : shoelace

2 : a small sum of money : capital inadequate or barely adequate to the needs of a transaction

shoestring in Context

For the first few years, Jillian and Georgia ran the business on a shoestring.

Did You Know?

In earlier times, wandering peddlers offered townspeople a variety of items and trinkets, such as fabrics, embroidery materials, and even patent medicines. Another popular offering from these traveling salespeople was shoelaces. The fact that such vendors neither earned much money nor charged very much for their wares led to the connection of their literal shoestrings with a metaphorical application of "shoestring" to a very small amount of money. It's still not uncommon to hear of a business being operated on a shoestring (even if these days it's less likely that actual shoelaces are involved), but it's also possible to speak of "traveling on a shoestring" and even "gardening on a shoestring."

*Indicates the sense illustrated in the example sentence.