leading-string

plural leading-strings

1. historicalplural normallyStrings with which children were formerly guided while they were learning to walk.

   her lover [...] treated me in all respects as a perfect infant. To say the truth, I wonder she had not insisted on my again wearing leading-strings.

   1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society, published 1973, page 396

   3 more examples

   Power is a debt to the people: but as yet we walk with the leading-strings of prejudice, strong to confine the steps, which they never should attempt to guide.

   1837, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], “The Interview”, in Ethel Churchill: Or, The Two Brides. […], volume II, London: Henry Colburn, […], →OCLC, page 247

   Every man, however brief or inglorious may have been his academical career, must remember with kindness and tenderness the old university comrades and days. The young man’s life is just beginning: the boy’s leading-strings are cut, and he has all the novel delights and dignities of freedom.

   1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 18, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC

   Highly protective – Louis wore leading strings until he was seven, a corset for his posture until he was ten – his guardians cocooned him from a wide range of normal childhood experiences.

   2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin, published 2003, page 74