leading-string

English

Noun

leading-string (plural leading-strings)

1. (historical, usually in plural) Strings with which children were formerly guided while they were learning to walk.
   • 1749, Henry Fielding, Tom Jones, Folio Society 1973, p. 396:

     her lover [...] treated me in all respects as a perfect infant. To say the truth, I wonder she had not insisted on my again wearing leading-strings.