borrowed time | Idiomator

Meaning: (idiomatic)A period of time whose precisedurationis not known but which can be expected to be quitelimited, and at the end of which one's situation,benefits, oropportunitieswill be entirelyterminated.to live onborrowed time1921,L[ucy] M[aud] Montgomery, chapter 31, inRilla of Ingleside, Toronto, Ont.:McClelland and Stewart,→OCLC:[A]t eighty a body is living onborrowed time.1957August 12, Herman N. Bundesen MD, “Diet and Health”, inLewiston Daily Sun, retrieved28 June 2011,page 3:A century ago you could expect to live 40 years.[…]Anything beyond that wasborrowed time.1997August 25, Christopher Clarey, “Ho Returns In Time To Say Farewell”, inNew York Times, retrieved28 June 2011:"Basically, my back is a career-ending injury."[…]It might seem like a Faustian bargain, but Ho is making the best of hisborrowed time.2011, Lisa Wingate,Larkspur Cove,→ISBN,page193:The thing aboutborrowed timeis that it always runs out quicker than you want it to.2020April 8, Howard Johnston, “East-ended? When the ECML was at risk”, inRail, page69:Several duplicate routes were onborrowed time, having escaped the Beeching cuts of half a decade earlier, but were nevertheless on thehit listfor closure because they fell outside the recently devised social grants system.2023August 23, Pjotr Sauer, “Prigozhin’s death would leave lasting mark on Russian army and elite”, inThe Guardian‎[1],→ISSN:Ever since the abortive coup, speculation had been that Yevgeny Prigozhin could be living onborrowed time.; A length of time whose duration has traditionally expired, but which continues nonetheless.Having survived when many others died, she decided to make good use of herborrowed time.

Examples:

EN: I feel as if I were living on borrowed time right now.
ES: Es como si estuviera viviendo un tiempo prestado.
EN: You aren't working on borrowed time anyway. I should have fired you last Tuesday.
ES: Debí despedirte el pasado martes.
EN: So you can see for yourself that even now I am living on borrowed time.
ES: Así que se da cuenta de que estoy viviendo tiempo prestado.
EN: Most guys are satisfied to live on borrowed time, but not your dad.
ES: Así que hace tiempo que tiene al Dr. Haggard... experimentando métodos para prolongar la vida. La mayoría está satisfecha con vivir tiempo prestado. Pero no su papá.
EN: If there is anything in those curses, I'm living on borrowed time anyhow.
ES: Como quiera, si las maldiciones son correctas mis días están contados.
EN: She's sort of on borrowed time, I guess.
ES: No le queda mucho tiempo de vida.
EN: I feel as though we are living on borrowed time.
ES: Es como un tiempo prestado.
EN: We're living on borrowed time.
ES: Vivimos en tiempos de préstamos.
EN: Anyone who got back from his first mission was on borrowed time.
ES: "Cualquiera que regrese de su primera misión vive un tiempo prestado"
EN: You said it yourself. You said I've been flying on borrowed time.
ES: Tú misma lo dijiste, que vivía un tiempo prestado.
EN: "Anyone who comes back from his first mission is on borrowed time."
ES: "Cualquiera que regrese de su primera misión vive un tiempo prestado"
EN: My father needs me, he's old, on borrowed time.
ES: Mi padre me necesita, es mayor y vive de prestado.
EN: "My father's old on borrowed time."
ES: "Mi padre es viejo..." "...vive de prestado".
EN: So you see I'm living on borrowed time.
ES: Estoy en ella desde hace 15, así que estoy viviendo tiempo prestado.
EN: Anybody that puts the finger on me is living on borrowed time.
ES: Cualquiera que vaya en contra mía tiene los días contados.

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 ).