down to the wire
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
Until the very last moment or deadline
Literally: a reference to the finish line in a horse race
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Coming down to the wire with FileNet imaging, WorkFlo products
In the event the starting line - up went down to the wire.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “down to the wire” mean?
Until the very last moment or deadline Literally: a reference to the finish line in a horse race
Is “down to the wire” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.