Sentence examples for a tenuous foothold from inspiring English sources

In Iraq, civil institutions of law have only a tenuous foothold.

("Hail Columbia" retains a tenuous foothold in modern times as the official song of the vice president).

From 1914 through the early 1920s, Chinese investors were able to gain a tenuous foothold in the scramble to develop the industrial economy.

The Syrian Army has descended on Aleppo, with troops, tanks, helicopters and warplanes, hoping to rout hundreds and perhaps thousands of armed opposition fighters who have grabbed a tenuous foothold here.

Still, MacDowell's music has always kept at least a tenuous foothold in American musical history, and Mr. Bates's assured, thoughtful performance of the "Keltic," with its cascading chords and brawny textures, was a useful reminder that this country's musical tradition began long before Nadia Boulanger began teaching its most promising young composers.

Thus conventional notions of the close relationship between theory and experiment have but a tenuous foothold, at best, in quantum gravity.

The Allies failed to reach their goals for the first day, but gained a tenuous foothold that they gradually expanded as they captured the port at Cherbourg on 26 June and the city of Caen on 21 July.

With the help of Squanto and the friendly Wampanoag, who taught them how to exploit the local fish and game, plant corn and squash, and also protected them from other hostile tribes, the band of colonists succeeded in establishing a tenuous foothold at the edge of the North American wilderness.