Tall order

Idiomatic Phrase
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Tall order refers to a difficult or demanding task; in challenging poetry, it symbolizes ambition, obstacle, or the formidable nature of goals that test capability and resolve.

Detailed Definition
Tall order means a difficult, demanding, or ambitious task. In poetry, the idiom makes challenge vertical, as though the requirement rises above ordinary reach. It can describe love, forgiveness, reform, survival, artistic creation, or moral courage. A poet may use it modestly when faced with impossible expectation, or admiringly when someone attempts what seems beyond them. The phrase is useful for exploring scale, effort, humility, and the tension between aspiration and human limitation.
Example
Example in poetry:
A quest poem might call crossing the frozen mountains before dusk a tall order; In a craft poem, making one sonnet hold a lifetime's grief is a tall order; The phrase means a difficult demand or challenge; A poet can use it for scale and difficulty.
Additional Notes
A tall order is a demanding, difficult, or perhaps unrealistic task. The height metaphor suggests a challenge that must be climbed, reached, or measured against human limits. In poetry, it can describe moral reform, artistic ambition, impossible love, social change, or comic overwork. Students should ask whether the task is merely difficult or unfairly imposed. It pairs well with ladders, towers, mountains, lists, and expectations.
Also Known As
difficult task
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