shoestring
Syllables: shoe·string/ˈʃuːstɹɪŋ/US/ˈʃustɹɪŋ/
shoestring noun: the string or lace used to secure a shoe to the foot; a shoelace.
Noun
shoestring (plural shoestrings)
- The string or lace used to secure a shoe to the foot; a shoelace.
- Your shoestring is untied.
- I am ſure ſhe is not half ſo beautiful, and vvill even venture to ſay, that ſhe is not vvorthy to tie her majeſty's ſhoe-ſtrings.1755, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, “The Pleasant Artifice Practised to Extricate Our Enamoured Knight from the Most Rigorous Penance He had Imposed upon Himself”, in T[obias] Smollett, transl., The...
- An object that is long and thin, like a shoestring (sense 1).
- Chiefly in on a shoestring: very little money; a tight budget.
- He was able to organize the event on a shoestring.
- As the 80s cult classic starring Madonna as a gorgeous grifter returns, director Susan Seidelman recalls capturing the zeitgeist on a shoestring budget[.]2022 November 23, Hadley Freeman, “Like a cinema virgin: how Madonna went stratospheric making Desperately Seeking Susan”, in The Guardian
Adjective
shoestring (not comparable)
Verb
shoestring (third-person singular simple present shoestrings, present participle shoestringing, simple past and past participle shoestringed)
- To tackle (a player) using a shoestring tackle (“one made near the ground, close to a player's shoes”).
- To catch (a ball) using a shoestring catch (“one made near the ground, close to a player's shoes”).
- We didn't score in our half of the eighth, but it was only because Ernie's line drive was shoestringed by the Giant left fielder, with Rusty Howarth on second.1976, Paul R. Rothweiler, The Sensuous Southpaw […], New York, N.Y.: Putnam, →ISBN, page 104
- Most outfielders say that short-hopping a ball so that it looks as if it was caught is more an accident than an art form, but Coach Joe Nossek of the Indians actually tells his charges to hold up the ball after shoestringing it on the off chance that the umpire might be fooled.1981 April 13, Steve Wulf, “Tricks of the Trade”, in Sports Illustrated Baseball: Four Decades of Sports Illustrated’s Finest Writing on America’s Favorite Pastime (Collector’s Library), Birmingham...
shoestring meaning in Kannada
shoestring in Kannada
- ಬೂಟಿನ ದಾರ, ಬಹು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹಣ, ಅತ್ಯಲ್ಪ ಹಣ, ಯಾತಕ್ಕೂ ಸಾಲದಷ್ಟು ದುಡ್ಡು
Examples of shoestring in a sentence
- The first year after we bought the house, we lived on a shoestring, but we survived.
- He arrives at school every day with his shoestrings all knotted.
- These steak fries have a much more potatoey texture than shoestring fries.
Forms of shoestring
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | shoestrings |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | shoestrings |
| present participle | shoestringing |
| past participle | shoestringed |
| past | shoestringed |
Origin of shoestring
The noun is derived from shoe + string. The adjective is derived from the noun, while the verb is derived from terms such as shoestring catch and shoestring tackle.
Words formed from shoestring
- shoestring catch
- devil's shoestring
- on a shoestring
- prairie shoestring
- shoestring annexation
- shoestringer
- shoestring fern
- shoestring French fry
- shoestring fry
- shoestring fungus
- shoestring mushroom
- shoestring necktie
- shoestring tie
- shoestring potato
- shoestring root rot
- shoestring rot
- shoestring tackle
Phrases with shoestring
Questions about shoestring
- What does shoestring mean?
- Shoestring means the string or lace used to secure a shoe to the foot; a shoelace.
- What is shoestring in Kannada?
- Shoestring in Kannada is ಬೂಟಿನ ದಾರ, ಬಹು ಸ್ವಲ್ಪ ಹಣ, ಅತ್ಯಲ್ಪ ಹಣ. See Shoestring meaning in Kannada.
- What part of speech is shoestring?
- Shoestring can be a noun, an adjective or a verb.
- How do you pronounce shoestring?
- Shoestring is pronounced /ˈʃuːstɹɪŋ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of shoestring?
- The plural of shoestring is shoestrings.
Words near shoestring in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: shoestring (page history and authors); shoestring (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-AcpoKrane-shoestring.wav.
Cite this entry: “shoestring.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/shoestring. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.