between a rock and a hard place

Meaning: (idiomatic)In a difficult and inescapable position.[from early 20th c.]2008, David Merde,Beyond Final Arrangements, page511:After meeting again that afternoon with Donna, Wilbur had advised her that she was indeedbetween a rock and a hard place. She could not hope to recover and build back the lost business until the suits were settled, and it appeared that the only way to settle the suits without going to court was to liquidate the mortuary assets or tap into the Clifton's personal funds.2017March 3,Nintendo EPD,The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild,Nintendo, description for Rock-Hard Food:A dish gone awry after adding the wrong ingredient. Chewing your way through this won't be fun, but it will fill you up when you'rebetween a rock and a hard place.; (idiomatic)Having the choice between twounpleasantordistastefuloptions; in apredicamentorquandary.Synonyms:between Scylla and Charybdis,between the devil and the deep blue sea;see alsoThesaurus:in a dilemma1970,David Sim,Tangent:Husbands, it seems to me, are caughtbetween the Rockof Feminismand the Hard Placeof their own marriages[…]2008September 11, Eric Dash, Geraldine Fabrikant, “Washington Mutual stock falls on investor fears”, inNew York Times, retrieved24 August 2012:If Washington Mutual needs to raise capital quickly, it will very likely find itselfbetween a rock and a hard place, because credit markets have all but closed their doors to troubled banks.

Examples:

EN: I'm between a rock and a hard place!
ES: ¡Qué estoy entre la espada y la pared!
EN: If they cut our track, it's gonna put us between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Si han descubierto nuestro rastro nos van a poner en un buen aprieto.
EN: What the Lieutenant means is that they're about to put us between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Lo que los medios teniente es que están a punto de ponernos Entre una roca y un lugar duro,
EN: About them putting us between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Sobre ellos poniéndonos Entre una roca y un lugar duro,
EN: You're a man between a rock and a hard place looking for a way out.
ES: Eres un hombre que se encuentra entre la espada... y la pared y busca una salida.
EN: You're between a rock and a hard place, boy.
ES: Está entre la espada y la pared.
EN: We've got this guy between a rock and a hard place, see?
ES: A éste lo pesca la policía pronto.
EN: Yeah: I was caught between a rock and a hard place for a while, but I'm okay:
ES: Estuve entre la espada y la pared, pero estoy bien.
EN: uncle Jesse, we're between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Nos encontramos entre la espada y la pared. Estamos atrapados.
EN: Now, you head up from the south... and we'll catch them between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Ahora, dirígete hacia ellos desde el sur... y los atraparemos entre las rocas y el terreno escabroso.
EN: Left me between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Me dejó entre la espada y la pared.
EN: For the pushy rebels who put us between a rock and a hard place, death is not enough punishment.
ES: Para los rebeldes sobresalidos que nos han puesto entre la espada y la pared la muerte es poco.
EN: Well, you might need them if you get caught between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Quizá las necesites si estás entre la espada y la pared.
EN: Archer was a kid that was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Archer fue un chico que quedó atrapado en una encrucijada.
EN: And I'm sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place.
ES: Y estoy entre la espada y la pared.

Note: the examples for non latin scripts have a high likelihood of mistakes, we do not own any of this data and it is sourced from Wiktionary, the NLLB database and Opensubtitles. Please help us improve this by contributing correct examples. We will be working to fix this issue over time however it is a bigger issue due to the the difficulties in dealing with non latin scripts and grammatical structures(non-romantic/european languages have lower resources as well ).