get a word in edgewise

present singular third person gets a word in edgewise · participle present getting a word in edgewise · past got a word in edgewise · UK participle past got a word in edgewise · US participle past gotten a word in edgewise · alternative get a word in edgeways

1. USderogatoryusuallyTo break into or participate in a conversation, especially where there is much interruption by other speakers.

   Everyone was talking at once. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

   5 more examples

   The converſation at breakfaſt began on reading, which ſhe ſaid ſhe was extremely fond of, and Joſeph, her ladyſhip, and my papa, fell into ſuch a deep diſcourſe, that I verily thought they would never have finiſhed; for, believe me, I was quite out of patience, as neither mama nor I, could ſo much as put a ſingle word in edgewiſe; for they might as well have talked Greek to us, and we ſhould have underſtood them much the ſame.

   [1778 December, “[Original Letters. Miss Clifford to Miss Granby.] In Continuation.”, in The Lady’s Magazine; or, Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex, Appropriated Solely to Their Use and Amusement, London: Printed for G[eorge] Robinson, […], →OCLC, page 652, column 1

   Accordingly she was exceedingly elevated; alternately singing pieces of hymns in a hobbling broken voice, having lost her teeth, breaking out into incoherent exclamations, and relating parts of her experience; while I had not room, which indeed I did not much require, to get a word in edgewise.

   1822, [James Colman], “Letter VIII. The Contrast.”, in Walks in the Country; or, Christian Sketches of Scenery, Life, and Character, in Familiar Letters, London: Printed for the author; published by James Nisbet, […], →OCLC, pages 100–101

   The baggage-camel had been bobbing his head to and from for some time past, anxious to get a word in edgeways.

   1894 May, Rudyard Kipling, “Servants of the Queen”, in The Jungle Book, London; New York, N.Y.: Macmillan and Co., published June 1894, →OCLC, page 196

   We help him push his Nash down the street, then drink awhile and talk with Evelyn a beautiful blonde woman that young Ron Blake wants and even Dave Wain wants but she's got her mind on other things and taking care of the children who have to go to school and dancing classes in the morning and hardly gets a word in edgewise anyway as we all yak and yell like fools to impress her tho all she really wants is to be alone with me to talk about Cody and his latest soul.

   1962 September 11, Jack Kerouac, chapter 13, in Big Sur, New York, N.Y.: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, →OCLC; republished as Big Sur (Penguin Modern Classics), London: Penguin Books, 2012, →ISBN

   From the women who write to her, Cokie Roberts has observed, "I get the feeling that the country is full of women who've never gotten a word in edgewise when the men talk politics."

   1996, Louis Baldwin, “Cokie Roberts: Political Commentator (1943– )”, in Women of Strength: Biographies of 106 who have Excelled in Traditionally Male Fields, A.D. 61 to the Present, Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Company, →ISBN, page 177