to be faced with two undesirable choices
Examples:
- When the boss told us we would have either a 10% pay cut, or face a layoff, we were between a rock and a hard place.
- I’m between a rock and a hard place. If I go to the school dance with Emma, I will need to spend a lot of money. If I don’t go, she will be angry with me.
- You've caught me between a rock and a hard place — I don't want to let the company down.
- The regulator is between a rock and a hard place: act too early or too late and both outcomes are bad.
Origin: This idiom comes from an incident in the early 20th Century, when mine workers demanded better pay, but were told to keep working without a pay raise or quit. So the miners were between a rock (the mine shaft) and a hard place (poverty). When you are between a rock and a hard place, you are given two undesirable choices.
Synonyms: between the devil and the deep blue sea, between scylla and charybdis, in a dilemma, caught between two evils