leading strings

See also: leading-strings

English

Noun

leading strings pl (plural only)

1. Strings or straps by which a child is supported when learning to walk.
   • 1839, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wilson:

     Thenceforward my voice was a household law; and at an age when few children have abandoned their leading-strings, I was left to the guidance of my own will, and became, in all but name, the master of my own actions.

2. (figurative) Guidance given during childhood.
   • 1827, The Boston Lyceum, volumes 1-2, page 206:

     In the hey-day of youth, and hardly out of the leading strings of a school, he formed an intention to nuptialize, and joined heart and hand with sweet Ann Hathaway at the age of eighteen and a half.