Meaning
Describes a situation that is risky, precarious or uncertain, where the outcome hangs on a very narrow margin and could easily have gone the other way. Often used of medical emergencies or close calls, as in 'it was touch and go for a while'. Works as a predicate ('the negotiation was touch and go') or as a noun ('after the crash, it was a touch-and-go night'). Neutral but tense in tone, typically used after the fact to describe a narrow escape or unresolved uncertainty. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The earliest known appearance, reported by The Phrase Finder, is in Seven Sermons Before Edward VI, published in 1869 but recording sermons Hugh Latimer preached in 1549: 'I wyl touch and go a lyttle in every place' - meaning to touch on points briefly, an entirely different sense. The precarious modern meaning appears independently in 1815, in a letter by the Scottish clergyman Ralph Wardlaw (''Twas touch and go - but I got my seat'), and is usually linked to glancing collisions: Admiral W. H. Smyth's The Sailor's Word-Book (1867) explains it of a ship whose keel rubs the seabed yet sails on - a mere touch, and she can still go. Grammarist likewise treats the phrase as nautical slang for close calls at sea around 1800, citing the United Service Journal (1830) and Glascock's Naval Sketch-book (1834: 'it was just touch and go, that they did not get the better of us'). A middle sense of hasty, careless execution is recorded from 1812 (Rejected Addresses). The nautical story is the standard explanation for the current sense but the phrase's earlier history shows the senses are distinct.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- A touch-and-go affair
- It was touch and go
Usage Examples
- For the first hour after the operation it was touch and go, but the patient pulled through.
- Whether the festival would get its licence in time was touch and go right up until the morning of the event.
- The climbers had several touch-and-go moments crossing the ridge in the storm.