fly too close to the sun
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.47 in modern English
30
Scrabble Score
19
Letters
6
Syllables
11
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To become overly ambitious or greedy; to overreach oneself; to reach for something unattainable or unachievable.
Example Sentences
- "Did Jackson fly too close to the sun? Should he have followed the Royals' advice -- the Royals' pleading, really -- that he play only baseball?"
- "Descalzi's friends at Telemundo worry that he is taking on too much, accelerating too quickly. They know he can fly too close to the sun -- and plunge into self-destructive indulgence."
- "When powerful men fly too close to the sun, two things can happen: they modify their course, or they come crashing down."
- "Studies indicate that women are more comprehensive thinkers and less attracted to excessive risk than are their male peers. It seems we have reached a fairly broad consensus on the meltdown: Guys were the ones flying too close to the sun."
- "Although superficially I had nothing in common with his characters apart from studying at Oxford, I couldn't avoid all sorts of emotional identification with them. This is the quintessential novel of Oxford gilded youth flying too close to the sun."
- "In the end, one could say with minimal originality, but considerable accuracy, that Bill Simmons simply flew too close to the sun. He miscalculated how much value ESPN put on him and on his unique abilities and talents."