"live on the edge" meaning in English

See live on the edge in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: En-au-live on the edge.ogg [Australia] Forms: to live on the edge [canonical], lives on the edge [present, singular, third-person], living on the edge [participle, present], lived on the edge [participle, past], lived on the edge [past]
Head templates: {{en-verb|*|head=to live on the edge}} to live on the edge (third-person singular simple present lives on the edge, present participle living on the edge, simple past and past participle lived on the edge)
  1. (idiomatic) To have an adventurous or perilous lifestyle; to behave in a manner which creates risks for oneself. Tags: idiomatic
    Sense id: en-live_on_the_edge-en-verb-LWD7L94a Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header Disambiguation of English entries with incorrect language header: 72 28
  2. (idiomatic) To be caught in an economic or societal situation which one did not choose, which threatens one's well-being or life, and which causes distress. Tags: idiomatic Related terms: on edge, on the edge, on the edge of, on the edge of one's seat
    Sense id: en-live_on_the_edge-en-verb-aFIPb6eR

Download JSON data for live on the edge meaning in English (4.8kB)

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  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "to live on the edge",
      "tags": [
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    {
      "form": "lives on the edge",
      "tags": [
        "present",
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    {
      "form": "living on the edge",
      "tags": [
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        "present"
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    },
    {
      "form": "lived on the edge",
      "tags": [
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      "name": "en-verb"
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  "lang_code": "en",
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  "senses": [
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      "categories": [
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          "_dis": "72 28",
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
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      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1983, Diana Cooper-Clark, Designs of Darkness: Interviews with Detective Novelists",
          "text": "Your idea that murder is the objective correlative of spiritual death, a metaphor for our daily lives, is fascinating. Is living on the edge thrilling and an interesting way to live?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1984, “A Good Knight's Work”, in Knight Rider",
          "text": "I wanted a chance to get out, to live life on the edge.[…] All right! All right. I can understand you wanting some excitement. But do you have any idea what you're getting involved in here?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989 November 26, Linda Saslow, “Dragging The Ocean For Winter's Bounty”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-10-13",
          "text": "\"I like living on the edge,\" said Mr. Wertz, adding that, although winter fishing is far more dangerous, it is also more lucrative.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 April 18, Michael Elliott, “Leaders & Revolutionaries: Chen Shui-bian”, in Time",
          "text": "The President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, seems to relish living on the edge. . . . Having narrowly won a second four-year term last year after surviving an apparent assassination attempt, Chen, 54, will remain in office until 2008.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To have an adventurous or perilous lifestyle; to behave in a manner which creates risks for oneself."
      ],
      "id": "en-live_on_the_edge-en-verb-LWD7L94a",
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        [
          "behave",
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        ],
        [
          "risk",
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To have an adventurous or perilous lifestyle; to behave in a manner which creates risks for oneself."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    },
    {
      "categories": [],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1982, William R. Ratchford, Hearing Before the Select Committee on Aging / House of Representatives",
          "text": "Any yet what we are talking about today is a threat to life, for 36 million very important Americans living on the margin so to speak, living on the edge, certainly, and living in wonderment as to whether or not they are going to be treated fairly in this process.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 April 19, “Tel Aviv bombing shatters lull in violence”, in IOL News (Reuters-Sapa-AP), retrieved 2011-10-13",
          "text": "\"The bombing was a sudden jolt and we are back to living on the edge again,\" said Gonsherovsky, 23, in Jerusalem's crowded Mahane Yehuda market.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 June 13, Tiisetso Motsoeneng, “Drought leaves Lesotho facing food crisis”, in Mail & Guardian, South Africa, retrieved 2011-10-13",
          "text": "\"The last thing Lesotho needed was another poor harvest since so many vulnerable people are already living on the edge, struggling to cope with the combined impact of successive crop failures, extreme poverty and HIV/Aids,\" said Amir Abdulla, WFP's regional director for Southern Africa.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be caught in an economic or societal situation which one did not choose, which threatens one's well-being or life, and which causes distress."
      ],
      "id": "en-live_on_the_edge-en-verb-aFIPb6eR",
      "links": [
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        [
          "threaten",
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        ],
        [
          "distress",
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      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be caught in an economic or societal situation which one did not choose, which threatens one's well-being or life, and which causes distress."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "_dis1": "24 76",
          "word": "on edge"
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          "_dis1": "24 76",
          "word": "on the edge"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "24 76",
          "word": "on the edge of"
        },
        {
          "_dis1": "24 76",
          "word": "on the edge of one's seat"
        }
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      "tags": [
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      "form": "living on the edge",
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      "form": "lived on the edge",
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      "form": "lived on the edge",
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  "lang_code": "en",
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  "related": [
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      "word": "on edge"
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      "word": "on the edge"
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      "word": "on the edge of"
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    {
      "word": "on the edge of one's seat"
    }
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        {
          "ref": "1983, Diana Cooper-Clark, Designs of Darkness: Interviews with Detective Novelists",
          "text": "Your idea that murder is the objective correlative of spiritual death, a metaphor for our daily lives, is fascinating. Is living on the edge thrilling and an interesting way to live?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1984, “A Good Knight's Work”, in Knight Rider",
          "text": "I wanted a chance to get out, to live life on the edge.[…] All right! All right. I can understand you wanting some excitement. But do you have any idea what you're getting involved in here?",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989 November 26, Linda Saslow, “Dragging The Ocean For Winter's Bounty”, in New York Times, retrieved 2011-10-13",
          "text": "\"I like living on the edge,\" said Mr. Wertz, adding that, although winter fishing is far more dangerous, it is also more lucrative.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2005 April 18, Michael Elliott, “Leaders & Revolutionaries: Chen Shui-bian”, in Time",
          "text": "The President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, seems to relish living on the edge. . . . Having narrowly won a second four-year term last year after surviving an apparent assassination attempt, Chen, 54, will remain in office until 2008.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
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      "glosses": [
        "To have an adventurous or perilous lifestyle; to behave in a manner which creates risks for oneself."
      ],
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          "adventurous",
          "adventurous"
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        [
          "perilous",
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        ],
        [
          "behave",
          "behave"
        ],
        [
          "risk",
          "risk"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To have an adventurous or perilous lifestyle; to behave in a manner which creates risks for oneself."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
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        "English idioms",
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        {
          "ref": "1982, William R. Ratchford, Hearing Before the Select Committee on Aging / House of Representatives",
          "text": "Any yet what we are talking about today is a threat to life, for 36 million very important Americans living on the margin so to speak, living on the edge, certainly, and living in wonderment as to whether or not they are going to be treated fairly in this process.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2006 April 19, “Tel Aviv bombing shatters lull in violence”, in IOL News (Reuters-Sapa-AP), retrieved 2011-10-13",
          "text": "\"The bombing was a sudden jolt and we are back to living on the edge again,\" said Gonsherovsky, 23, in Jerusalem's crowded Mahane Yehuda market.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2007 June 13, Tiisetso Motsoeneng, “Drought leaves Lesotho facing food crisis”, in Mail & Guardian, South Africa, retrieved 2011-10-13",
          "text": "\"The last thing Lesotho needed was another poor harvest since so many vulnerable people are already living on the edge, struggling to cope with the combined impact of successive crop failures, extreme poverty and HIV/Aids,\" said Amir Abdulla, WFP's regional director for Southern Africa.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "To be caught in an economic or societal situation which one did not choose, which threatens one's well-being or life, and which causes distress."
      ],
      "links": [
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          "caught",
          "caught"
        ],
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        ],
        [
          "threaten",
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          "well-being",
          "well-being"
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          "distress"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(idiomatic) To be caught in an economic or societal situation which one did not choose, which threatens one's well-being or life, and which causes distress."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "idiomatic"
      ]
    }
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  "sounds": [
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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-03 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.