breathing space
Noun
Meaning
a short respite
sufficient room for easy breathing or movement
Source: WordNetAlternative names
breathing-space
Synonyms
Antonyms
Show all antonymsHypernyms
Examples
It is not possible to control the outside of yourself until you have mastered your breathing space. It is not possible to change anything until you understand the substance you wish to change.
The cry of the Have-Nots has never been "give us our hearts," but always "get off our backs"; they ask not for love but for breathing space.
I think her friends were worried that the bulimia might come back, about some psychological slide, and she was given breathing space to some extent by the media as much as she ever has been.
We are all, in a sense, experts on secrecy. From earliest childhood we feel its mystery and attraction. We know both the power it confers and the burden it imposes. We learn how it can delight, give breathing space and protect.
All she wanted was a breathing space in which to hurt.
A cigarette is a breathing space. It makes a parenthesis. The time of a cigarette is a parenthesis, and if it is shared, you are both in that parenthesis. Its like a proscenium arch for a dialogue.