shoestring

plural shoestrings

1. USThe string or lace used to secure a shoe to the foot; a shoelace.

   Your shoestring is untied.

   1 more example

   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 History and Adventures of the Renowned Don Quixote. […], volume I, London: […] A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC, part I, book IV, page 221

2. attributivefigurativelyoftenAn object that is long and thin, like a shoestring (sense 1).
   1. attributivefigurativelyoftencookingA long, narrow cut of a food; a julienne.

      shoestring French fries

3. attributivefigurativelyoftenChiefly in on a shoestring: very little money; a tight budget.

   He was able to organize the event on a shoestring.

   1 more example

   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

1. USnot comparableAmerican footballOf a catch or tackle: made near the ground, close to a player's shoes.

present singular third person shoestrings · participle present shoestringing · participle past shoestringed · past shoestringed

1. transitiveAmerican footballTo tackle (a player) using a shoestring tackle (“one made near the ground, close to a player's shoes”).
2. transitiveball gamesTo 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

   1 more example

   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, Ala.: Oxmoor House, published 1994, →ISBN, page 275