push the envelope
To expand on, exceed, or test the limits of the established norm or standard. The company is renowned for pushing the envelope whenever they develop a new piece of technology. If you want to make a name for yourself in the art world, then you can't be afraid of pushing the envelope. It's a natural stage for most teenagers to push the envelope of their parents' rules.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
push the envelope
Fig. to expand the definition, categorization, dimensions, or perimeters of something. The engineers wanted to completely redesign the product, but couldn't push the envelope because of a very restricted budget.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
push the envelope
Exceed the limits of what is normally done, be innovative, as in They are pushing the envelope in using only new fabrics for winter clothing. This idiom comes from aviation, the envelope alluding to the technical limits of a plane's performance, which, on a graph, appear as a rising slope as limits of speed and stress are approached and falls off when the capacity is exceeded and the pilot loses control; safety lies within these limits, or envelope, and exceeding them exposes pilot and plane to risk. [Slang; late 1960s]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
push the envelope
If you push the envelope, you do something to a greater degree or in a more extreme way than it has been done before. We have to keep pushing the envelope, trying new technologies and developing better methods. There's a valuable place for fashion and design that pushes the envelope a bit. Note: Rather than referring to stationery, the sense of envelope here is probably the one used to refer to the shape of a wave in electronics or a curve in mathematics. Pushing or stretching the envelope suggests changing the properties of the wave or curve.
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012
push the envelope (or the edge of the envelope)
approach or extend the limits of what is possible. informal This expression was originally aviation slang and related to graphs of aerodynamic performance on which the envelope is the boundary line representing an aircraft's capabilities.
1993 Albuquerque These are extremely witty and clever stories that consistently push the envelope of TV comedy.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
push the ˈenvelope
do something in an extreme way in order to find out to what degree something is possible: Advertisements seem to be pushing the envelope of taste every day. ♢ People these days like to push the envelope with extreme sports. ▶ ˈenvelope-pushing noun, adj.: envelope-pushing technologyThis expression comes from the aeroplane industry. A plane’s envelope was the limit of its performance. Test pilots would need to push (the edge of) the envelope to see what the plane could and could not do.Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017
push the envelope
To exceed or try to exceed the existing limits of a discipline or activity.
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright © 2016 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
push the envelope
Go to extremes, go beyond accepted limits. This term comes from flight testing in the 1960s, where envelope signifies the limits of safe performance, and pushing it means to fly an aircraft faster or higher or dive more steeply than had ever been attempted in order to see what it could do. By the 1980s the expression was used figuratively, and so widely that it has become a cliché. Opera singer Renée Fleming used it in The Inner Voice (2004): “You want to go out there, push the envelope, and do something you’ve never done before.”
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer