tumbleweed moment
tumbleweed moment noun: a period of stony, unresponsive silence.
Noun
tumbleweed moment (plural tumbleweed moments)
- A period of stony, unresponsive silence.
- …real life television news quizzes have the benefit of careful editing to remove the tumbleweed moments.2004 July 14, Laura Davis, “Arts Diary: STAGE QUIZ”, in Daily Post, Liverpool, England
- When you’re wondering if they might just sit there self-consciously not saying anything (a tumbleweed moment) you need to get away from the centre-front, start moving around.2005 April 1, Trevor Wright, How to Be a Brilliant English Teacher, Routledge, →ISBN, page 78
- Synonyms:
- dead air
Synonyms of tumbleweed moment
Forms of tumbleweed moment
| plural | tumbleweed moments |
|---|
Origin of tumbleweed moment
From the motif in western movies where the wind blows tumbleweeds through the scene, usually to establish that the place is desolate or empty.
Questions about tumbleweed moment
- What does tumbleweed moment mean?
- Tumbleweed moment means a period of stony, unresponsive silence.
- What part of speech is tumbleweed moment?
- Tumbleweed moment is a noun.
- What is the plural of tumbleweed moment?
- The plural of tumbleweed moment is tumbleweed moments.
Words near tumbleweed moment in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: tumbleweed moment (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.
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Cite this entry: “tumbleweed moment.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/tumbleweed_moment. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.