test the water

test the water/waters

to try to discover what people think about an idea before you do anything about it, or to try to discover what a situation is really like before you become very involved in it I mentioned my idea to a couple of friends as a way of testing the water and they were very enthusiastic about it. Perhaps you should go to a couple of meetings to test the waters before you decide whether to join the club.

See stand the test of time

Common Names:

Name	Pronounced	Usage
Ella (1)	EL-ə	English
Willie	WIL-ee	English
Kyrillos	-	Ancient Greek
Niilo	NEE:-lo	Finnish
Emmeline	EM-ə-leen, EM-ə-lien	English (Archaic)
Nonie	-	English