Definition of "tightrope" []

• A tightly stretched rope or a wire, on which acrobats perform high above the ground. (noun)
• An extremely precarious course or situation. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Sneider manages to sustain a delicate balance between caricature and identification in a black comedy that, for the most part, successfully walks that peculiarly Latin American tightrope between soap-opera naturalism and slightly feverish myth."
• "She zips past me, in a dramatic movie-starrish way, to the center of my living room, where she proceeds to pace back and forth in short tightrope movements."
• "I use an analogy of which I have no actual knowledge — namely tightrope walking."