running room

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

running room (uncountable)

1. Freedom; flexibility; options.
   • 1979 [1874 June 24], Franz Liszt, translated by William R. Tyler, [Letter]‎, quoted in The Letters of Franz Liszt to Olga von Meyendorff, […] , Washington, DC: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, page 145:

     You know that letter-writing is a punishment for me, often a very harsh one. My pen knows not how to flow, and easily becomes petrified. I absolutely must have the stimulus of viva voce talk for my modest wits to have running room.

   • 1984, Tierney Bates, “Managing a Cast of Thousands—Merit Pay Employees”, in David A. Turner, editor, Management‎, volume 4, number 3, Washington, DC, →ISSN, page 25:

     [quoting John Fossum:] " […] Managers with small pay pool budgets still have running room to distribute performance bonusses."

   • 2023 February 17, 22:06 from the start, Behind the Screens, in Joseph Camp, director, PBS NewsHour‎ (television production), spoken by David Folkenfilk, via Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), retrieved 2023-02-17:

     [FOX news] would say […] [t]here has to be robust room for there to be rhetoric and hyperbole and overstatement and, yes, at times, misstatement, when we're talking about important issues of national and politcal concern, because that's what the First Amendment envisions. You have to have running room.

• wiggle room