English · Idiom Candidate

sign on the dotted line

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

to formally agree or commit to something

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Đồng ý hoặc cam kết正式 với điều gì đó

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: signing one's name on a line with dots

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

It all seemed easy — they sign on the dotted line and Balbinder would be virtually taken out of their hands.

I was back to that school chapel with the chaplain doing his Goddest to get me to sign on the dotted line and hand over my soul.

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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “sign on the dotted line” mean?

to formally agree or commit to something Literally: signing one's name on a line with dots

Is “sign on the dotted line” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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