Idiom
Push the envelope
To push the envelope is to go beyond the usual limits of what is possible or accepted, trying something new or daring.
How people use it
People use it for bold work in technology, sports, art, cooking, design and fashion: The chef pushes the envelope with desserts made from vegetables. It is often admiring, but it can also suggest someone is going too far, especially in comedy or advertising. It is informal to neutral and common in business talk, where it can sound like a buzzword if used too often. The envelope is not a paper envelope for letters; it means a set of limits.
Examples
- The robotics club pushed the envelope this year with a robot that can climb stairs.
- Leo's art teacher encourages students to push the envelope and try strange colors.
- Some fans think the new car design pushes the envelope too far.
Where it comes from
The phrase comes from aviation. Engineers call the safe range of an aircraft's speed, height and stress its flight envelope, a term borrowed from mathematics, where an envelope is a curve that marks a boundary. Test pilots who flew at the edge of those limits were pushing the envelope. Tom Wolfe's 1979 book The Right Stuff, about test pilots and early astronauts, made the phrase widely known.
Check yourself
1. If a designer pushes the envelope, what is she doing?
Answer: Going beyond the usual limits. Push the envelope means trying something bolder than what is normal.
2. Which field did the phrase come from?
Answer: Aviation and test pilots. A flight envelope is an aircraft's safe limits, and test pilots pushed those limits.
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