under the wire
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to do something just before a deadline
Literally: passing under a wire
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
Sorry for coming in under the wire at er nine fourteen according to this clock.
Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, which were annexed by the Soviet ~ Union in 1940, slipped in under the wire in 2004.
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 “under the wire” mean?
to do something just before a deadline Literally: passing under a wire
Is “under the wire” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.