Idiom
test the waters
Meaning
To explore or probe, as before making a commitment.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“I will test the waters before I apply for that new job.”
“Before investing all our savings into the new project, we decided to test the waters with a small pilot program.”
“The author published a short story online to test the waters, hoping to gauge reader interest before committing to a full-length novel.”
Examples
simple
“I will test the waters before I apply for that new job.”
contextual
“Before investing all our savings into the new project, we decided to test the waters with a small pilot program.”
complex
“The author published a short story online to test the waters, hoping to gauge reader interest before committing to a full-length novel.”
Key words
Related idioms
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