Meaning
Enough free space to move, work or operate comfortably without crowding or restriction - originally the literal room a person needs to use their elbows. Now also figurative freedom of action: scope to manoeuvre in negotiations, budgets, schedules or creative work, as in a budget with plenty of elbow room. Works as a mass noun ('plenty of elbow room'). Common patterns: give someone elbow room, have elbow room to do something. Older texts hyphenate it and the one-word elbowroom also appears. The Shakespeare coinage story is false and worth correcting. Regional use: All English-speaking regions.
Origin
Often credited to Shakespeare because the dying king in King John, Act 5, Scene 7, cries: 'Ay, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room; / It would not out at windows nor at doors' - verified verbatim against shakespeare.mit.edu, where the line is spoken by King John himself. But the record contradicts the coinage claim: the OED's factsheet dates elbow room to around 1540, with earliest evidence in the writing of Andrew Borde, physician and author - roughly a quarter century before Shakespeare was born in 1564 - and Merriam-Webster independently gives a first known use of circa 1540 in the literal sense of room for moving the elbows freely. The OED calls it a native compound of elbow plus room. Popular Shakespeare sites still assert that Shakespeare 'coined' or 'yoked together' the words - NoSweatShakespeare's page makes the claim explicitly - but the phrase circulated in English for decades before King John; his use is the most famous early appearance, not the invention.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- give someone elbow room
- more elbow room
Usage Examples
- The new apartment is tiny, but at least the kitchen has enough elbow room for two cooks.
- Negotiators asked for elbow room on the deadline rather than a fixed date.
- With three children and two dogs in the back seat, there was precious little elbow room on the drive.