to come down to the wire
5
5.9
- idiom
- Informal
:
llegar al límite
- In the championship game, the score was tied, and it all came down to the wire with just seconds left on the clock.
- things came down to the wire
- race comes down to the wire
All right, all right, coming down to the wire.
- All right, all right, coming down to the wire.
Examples
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The Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup championship is coming down to the wire, and it could very well turn out to be as close and exciting as last year.
Blog text (26) -
Men's Soccer's game, too, came down to the wire, but ended in a scoreless draw after 110 minutes of play.
Blog text (18) -
This one's coming down to the wire, folks.
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Well, it's coming down to the wire here.
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It's gonna come down to the wire.
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It's coming down to the wire.
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The 2012 election could come down to the wire.
Blog text (18) -
The election is coming down to the wire.
Blog text (2) -
This election is coming down to the wire.
Blog text (18) -
PROP 30: It looks like Proposition 30, the tax hike sponsored by Gov. Jerry Brown and supported by the teachers' unions, is going to come down to the wire.
Blog text (9)
Synonyms
14
7.0
Not decided until the very last moment before a deadline
5
5.9
To continue until the last possible moment while the result is not known
How Close
- Informal
4
7.8
- Literature
4
4.2
- Informal
5
5.9
- Informal
7
5.2
8
3.4
- Literature
1
4.3
Surface Forms
Morphology
Although 'come down' signals reaching a point, the phrase 'to the wire' relies on a sports/metaphorical sense of 'wire' as a finish line that many learners (including B1) will not know or link to last‑minute decision. The full idiomatic meaning 'decided at the very last moment' is not transparently compositional from the individual words and is culturally specific, so learners who only know the constituents are unlikely to infer it.
Etymology
The idiom come down to the wire comes from old horse races. One popular story says a thin wire was stretched across the finish line, so a race was only decided when the horses reached that wire. That's why it now means 'the outcome is not decided until the last moment'.