colour outside the lines

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

to depart from established rules, conventions, or expectations in favour of creative freedom, individual expression, and a willingness to try approaches that the conventional framework does not sanction; drawn from the instruction given to children learning to draw and colour within printed outlines, the metaphor suggests that maturity and creativity involve the freedom to ignore the lines that structure conventional performance; colouring outside the lines is celebrated in contexts that value innovation and unconventional thinking, and is used to describe artists, entrepreneurs, and thinkers who achieve originality by disregarding the boundaries that constrain more cautious practitioners

American English uses 'color outside the lines'; British English uses 'colour outside the lines'