Slip Through One's Fingers

Idiom:  Slip Through One’s Fingers; used as a verb.

Example:  

“Even though the police had been thoroughly searching the area, the jewel thieves somehow managed to slip through their fingers and escaped the area.”

Meaning:  Slip through one’s fingers means to escape from someone or to elude capture or control.  In this example, the police had failed to capture the jewel thieves.  By narrowly escaping capture, the thieves had successfully avoided being caught by the police.  This idiom can apply to any situation where somebody is trying to avoid being caught.  This idiom is used as a verb in this example.

This idiom is from the LSI book "The Idiom Advantage – Fluency in Speaking and Listening," which is used as the primary Idioms textbook in LSI’s Advanced Conversation classes.

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