con pies de plomo
Meaning: To proceed with extreme caution or wariness; to tread carefully in a delicate situation.
Language: Spanish
Literally: with feet of lead
Category: Body & Senses
Origin: Lead is heavy and dense; the image is of moving with such heaviness and deliberateness that each step is weighted and guarded.
More idioms — Body & Senses
- con lo puesto — With nothing but the clothes on one's back; in a state of complete destitution.
- die Nase voll haben — To be fed up or exhausted by something.
- Salz in die Wunde streuen — To deliberately make someone's pain or humiliation worse.
- vor den Kopf stoßen — To offend or affront someone.
- den Geist aufgeben — to die, or to cease functioning.
- um ein Haar — by the narrowest possible margin; almost not.
More Spanish idioms
- cuéntame una de vaqueros — A challenge to someone to stop lying or exaggerating; an equivalent of "pull the other on…
- tomar el toro por los cuernos — To face a difficult problem directly and courageously rather than avoiding it.
- cortar por lo sano — To sever a problem decisively rather than manage it halfway, making a clean break or radi…
- caer en gracia — To charm someone instantly or be liked right away.
- de tres al cuarto — Worthless, shoddy, or of poor quality.
- venir mal dadas — For things to go wrong or turn out badly.