tread lightly

verb, noun — 2 senses

tread lightly

verbalso spelled tread-lightly

1

Idiomatic To proceed carefully; especially, to seek to avoid causing offense.

He's in a bad mood today, so you might want to tread lightly if you talk to him.

Related terms: walk on eggshells

tread-lightly

noun

1

Cardionema ramosissimum

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — authors: page histories for tread lightly and tread-lightly.