tiptoe
tiptoed; tiptoeing; tiptoes; tiptoing
To tiptoe is to walk with your weight on your toes, moving quietly. If you're late to your yoga class and everyone's lying still with their eyes closed, you may want to tiptoe to your mat.
You can also use tiptoe as a noun or an adjective: "She had to stand on her tiptoes to reach the cabinet where the cookies are kept." Figuratively, you tiptoe when you avoid a certain topic: "There's no need to tiptoe around the subject of money—I don't mind talking about it." The variation tippy toes dates from the early 1800s.
Definitions of tiptoe
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walk on one's toes
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the tip of a toe
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type of:
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tip
the extreme end of something, especially something pointed
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tip
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walking on the tips of ones's toes so as to make no noise“moving with tiptoe steps”
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Synonyms:
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quiet
free of noise or uproar; or making little if any sound
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quiet
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on tiptoe or as if on tiptoe“standing tiptoe”
DISCLAIMER: These example sentences appear in various news sources and books to reflect the usage of the word ‘tiptoe'.
Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Vocabulary.com or its editors.
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