with training wheels

English

Adjective

with training wheels (not comparable)

1. Made easier for novices.
   • 2000, Steven K. Roberts, From Behemoth to Microship, →ISBN, page 92:

     I mean, even with the luxury of a graphic front end, there's only so much low-level control that you can do on what is basically a canoe with training wheels.

   • 2010, Rowan Jacobsen, A Geography of Oysters, →ISBN:

     You may not be ready to chase down a rabbit and kill it, but you can shuck an oyster, eat it, and get the primal thrill. It's like going native with training wheels.

   • 2012, Insight Guides: New England, →ISBN:

     Standup paddling can be described as surfing with training wheels, although you provide the propulsion, not the waves.

2. Designed or adapted for children.
   • 2004, Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, →ISBN:

     Also, I introduced him to crayons. Bought the Crayola beginner set—the short, fat, thick ones with training wheels.

   • 2013, Elizabeth Dunn, Michael Norton, Happy Money, →ISBN, page 24:

     Alternatively, they can drop their tokens into games of chance—basically, slot machines with training wheels.

   • 2014, Gardner Dozois, Modern Classics of Fantasy, →ISBN:

     While a faint whiff of raffishness remained, science fiction could be justified as a specialized form of children's or Young Adult literature—as literature with training wheels on it, something that would teach the kids to be familiar with Science and Technology and to think progressively about The Future (much in the fashion of the famous “World of the Future” dioramas at the 1939 World's Fair) until they were ready to put aside childish things and turn to “real literature” about “the real world".

3. In a formative stage; nascent.
   • 2009, Michael Marshall, Bad Things, →ISBN, page 199:

     Everyone always thinks they're bigger than drugs -- rock stars with training wheels, hard-eyed corner boys or homemakers with a scrip from their physician.

   • 2012, Neal Shusterman, Downsiders, →ISBN:

     Naturally he had no clue that Todd's “intimate gathering of friends” was actually a cauldron of hormones and questionable fruit punch—a prelude to the all-night bashes that would someday fill Todd's entire college career. In effect, this was a fraternity party with training wheels.

4. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see with,‎ training wheels.
   • 2008, Marie Stacey, The Election of Ideologies: Do You Know Where You Stand?, →ISBN, page 107:

     My boyfriend and I even saw a scooter with training wheels the other day riding through the mountains for a nice summer drive.

   • 2012, Bernard Rollin, Cynthia Pineo, Harley-Davidson and Philosophy: Full-Throttle Aristotle, →ISBN, page 203:

     His son, however, has been riding since age four, when Rollin obsessively forced him to drive a cycle with training wheels.