in too deep
12
7.4
- idiom
- Informal
:
estar metido hasta el cuello
- By the time she realized the difficulties, she was already in too deep to back out.
- get in too deep
- in too deep to back
- in too deep to go
It takes us back to the important lesson of not falling in too deep with charm and charisma.
- It takes us back to the important lesson of not falling in too deep with charm and charisma.
- So I suppose what do you do when you're in too deep, You know, you go on the offence.
- But if you let them in too deep, then you have a real psychological mess on your hands.
- You have to be aware enough to understand what is the point that that puts you in too deep that you're now going to have a hard time pulling out.
- And they might be like, I'm backing off now because I've gotten in too deep or I don't want to go where this person's taking me.
- So you take and then eventually you're, you're too, you're in too deep.
Examples
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I told you you were in too deep.
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Gotta stop this before I get in too deep.
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Be careful not to get in too deep, son.
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I was in too deep to stop and walk away.
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We're in too deep now, okay?
-
Now, we're in this thing and I think we're in too deep to stop now.
-
I'm in too deep to let it just drop now.
Blog text (22) -
But you're in too deep now.
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But you're in too deep now and there's no way out.
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I’m in too deep now, and will not leave her as she’s an incredible lady.
Blog text (7)
Synonyms
13
3.9
Very involved in something, like work or problems
4
6.9
Very involved in a difficult situation that is hard to manage
3
7.6
Very busy with difficult work or problems and almost overwhelmed
3
5.9
A situation that causes serious trouble
2
7.9
Being very busy with a lot of difficult work or problems
2
6.7
Very involved in a difficult or serious problem
1
7.9
Very involved in a difficult situation with too much to do
Having too much work or too many problems to deal with
Deeply involved in a difficult or public dispute
Very involved in an activity, often working with your hands
Antonyms
How Involved
Surface Forms
Morphology
The phrase combines 'in' (position), 'too' (excessively) and 'deep' (great extent), so the meaning 'excessively involved or entangled' is directly inferable from the constituent meanings via a common spatial-to-abstract metaphor (depth = degree of involvement). This mapping is cross-linguistically frequent and follows ordinary compositional patterns, so a B1 learner who knows the parts would likely understand it.
Etymology
In too deep comes from the simple image of wading into water so you are in it and it is deep, too deep to stand or to walk back to shore. So it now means being 'too involved' in a situation or problem and finding it hard to get out.