pussyfoot around

pussyfoot (around)

To behave in an overly cautious, timid, or non-committal manner. He had a chance to take over the business for himself if he hadn't kept pussyfooting around. All this pussyfooting is going to cost us our chance at closing the deal.
See also: pussyfoot
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

pussyfoot around

Fig. to go about timidly and cautiously. (Alludes to a cat walking carefully.) Stop pussyfooting around! Get on with it! I wish that they would not pussyfoot around when there are tough decisions to be made.
See also: around, pussyfoot
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

pussyfoot (around)

in. to behave in a very cautious manner; to (metaphorically) tread softly; to hedge or equivocate. Come on and say what you mean! Stop pussyfooting.
See also: around, pussyfoot
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • pussyfoot
  • pussyfoot (around)
  • toy
  • boy toy
  • fly (one's) freak flag
  • do unto others
  • don't make yourself a mouse, or the cat will eat you
  • gain in
  • gain in (something)
  • pipsqueak
References in periodicals archive
One thing's for sure, they need to be dealt with vigorously and judges need to give maximum sentences and not pussyfoot around as they often do.
followed Vic Chamberlain Lochgelly, Fife IT IS outrageous that people are having to suffer hardship and starvation while these rich Tory MPs pussyfoot around, trying to decide how cheaply they can make the Universal Credit system work.
Let's not pussyfoot around any longer with the "silver-spoon" Tories, including the likes of Boris and Jacob in their eccentric and totally political worlds, and produce a sensible and real government to create jobs and support the working classes of our great country before it's too late.
But what I find hard to get my head around is that if this is an NHS initiative, why do they have to pussyfoot around trying to get their own trusts and wheelchair services to sign up to their own charter?
The voters were telling David Cameron and Ed Miliband they cannot pussyfoot around with immigration any longer.
"Paul cannot change the way he plays, so we wouldn't be asking him to pussyfoot around, to not get the yellow.
But I'm not sitting in the dressing room telling them not to tackle, to pussyfoot around, telling them to misplace passes.
"I am not the one telling them to pussyfoot around. Four or five of them just did not compete in the first half.
DAVID GARDNER, Newcastle MAM Your parking skills are pretty bad, You sometimes shout and bawl at dad, You never pussyfoot around, Opinionated, always loud When boys were mean, you let me cry And joined me in my desperate sigh I flew the nest and now I know How hard it was to let me go Now I've children of my own, I see the need to let them roam.
"If you pussyfoot around them they will murder you - and that is something I don't want to happen."
"You have to be master of it, you can't pussyfoot around. You have to understand it and know how to use its potential because the remarkable thing about it, that makes it so different, is that it is a combination of electronics and mechanics.
Let's not pussyfoot around, this is murder of the innocents.
The Church can continue to pussyfoot around with Jews and others who are unwilling to budge on the issue, or it can seize the moment of its own convictions and proceed in confidence with Pope Pius XII's beatification.
Sometimes we pussyfoot around but life is what it is."
IT'S been a week for obvious questions and plainly predictable responses as journalists pussyfoot around Steve McClaren's future.