drawing

To set a (figurative) boundary, indicating what one is not willing or able to do. I'm prepared to do some cosmetic fixes on our new home, but I draw a line at major renovation. Aunt Peggy was fine with us setting her up on a date, but she drew a line at letting us create an online dating profile.

To act more cautiously than one did before. I just got this quarter's budget report, and we definitely need to draw in our horns and spend less going forward.

To get close to someone or something, either literally or figuratively. You need to draw near to your family in this time of tragedy. Come on, son, draw near to the wall so you can see exactly where to put in the nail.

To decide something by picking an item, often a slip of paper, at random. Let's draw lots to decide who will go first—it's the only fair way to do it.

Someone used to attract a crowd to an event. Bill Gates was definitely the drawing card for the computer security conference this year.

Revising something (such as a plan) from the beginning, typically after it has failed. That ad campaign was not as successful as we had hoped. Back to the drawing board. We need to go back to the drawing board on this project. I think it had some fundamental flaws from the start.

Fig. time to start from the start; it is time to plan something over again. (Plans or schematics are drawn on a drawing board. Note the variations shown in the examples.) It didn't work. Back to the drawing board. I flunked English this semester. Well, back to the old drawing board.

Fig. an attraction that helps bring patrons to a place of entertainment. The comedian was a real drawing card at the night club.

Fig. to return to the planning stage, so that a failed project can be planned again. These plans have to go back to the drawing board. I thought these problems went back to the drawing board once already.

to start something again because the previous attempt failed Researchers went back to the drawing board to find where they went wrong.

a famous person who attracts a lot of people to a public event Babe Ruth was the outstanding player of his time - the real drawing card for Yankee Stadium.

if you go back to the drawing board, you have to start planning a piece of work again because the previous plan failed If the education reform is too expensive to implement, it's back to the drawing board for the committee. Our proposal might not be accepted, in which case we'll have to go back to the drawing board.

Also, back to square one. Back to the beginning because the current attempt was unsuccessful, as in When the town refused to fund our music program, we had to go back to the drawing board , or I've assembled this wrong side up, so it's back to square one. The first term originated during World War II, most likely from the caption of a cartoon by Peter Arno in The New Yorker magazine. It pictured a man who held a set of blueprints and was watching an airplane explode. The variant is thought to come from a board game or street game where an unlucky throw of dice or a marker sends the player back to the beginning of the course. It was popularized by British sports-casters in the 1930s, when the printed radio program included a grid with numbered squares to help listeners follow the description of a soccer game.

A feature or event that attracts a large audience. For example, This Italian tenor is always a good drawing card. Card in this idiom refers to a large poster containing an advertisement for something, often some sort of entertainment. [Late 1800s]

Back to the beginning or the planning stage after an approach has proved unsuccessful.

In the planning stage; under consideration.