seat of pants
Flying without instruments
The seat of the pants is the part covering the buttocks.
To do something by the seat of your pants is to rely on instinct and improvisation rather than formal training or careful planning—suggesting you're barely hanging on, feeling your way through: We flew by the seat of our pants through that whole project.
- buttocksFleshy seat area
- intuitionInstinctive immediate understanding
- instinctInnate behavioral tendency
- gutDigestive tract, or instinct
- gut feelingInstinctive sense about something
flying · fly blind · improvise · winging · wing it · make it up · trousers · rear · behind · hunch · guesswork · experience · feeling · snap judgment · denim · worn · fabric · cushion
- improvisationimprovised, impromptu, ad lib, freestyle, ad-lib
- estimatesestimate, estimation, ballpark, ballpark estimate, rough estimate
- improvisingad-lib, ad-libbing, riff, riffing, jamming
- workaroundsworkaround, workarounds, fixes, hacks, quick fix
seat of pantsby the book
Following established procedures exactly
methodical · systematic · planned · calculated · rehearsed
seat of pantsdata-driven
Informed by collected information
evidence-based · analytical · empirical · scientific · fact-based
seat, seats, seated, seating, seater, unseated, pants, pant, panted