River Rescues And Safety Warnings In Ripon
B2 English listening practice · American English · Curated for upper-intermediate learners
What does “dip your toes in the water” mean?
In this news report, families are “eager to dip their toes” in a river — real toes, real water. But dip your toes in (the water) is more useful as an idiom: to try something new slowly and carefully, before you decide to do it fully. You test the water first. You can dip your toes into a new hobby, a new job, or a new language.
The idiom dates from around the 1950s and keeps the swimming picture: you check the temperature before you jump. It often takes into: “She dipped her toes into investing before buying more.” The clip gives the idiom a serious echo — it is about swimmers who went in without testing anything, and the calm-looking river turned dangerous within seconds.
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Source: wordfreq 3.1.1 (general) · SUBTLEX-US 2012 (spoken). Buckets approximate; exact ranks not stored.