English · Idiom Candidate

strain at the leash

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

To be eager to start or take action, but be restrained

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Khao khát bắt đầu hoặc hành động nhưng bị kìm giữ

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: a dog straining against its leash

Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

Leith could feel her anger straining at the leash at his sarcastic comment, but she made enormous efforts to stay cool.

The shuttle stopped, trembling, as if straining at a leash.

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 “strain at the leash” mean?

To be eager to start or take action, but be restrained Literally: a dog straining against its leash

Is “strain at the leash” formal or informal?

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

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