tiptoe这个词的意思是脚尖，用脚尖走。而tiptoe around主要有两个意思：

1.做某事小心翼翼的 （to act very cautiously about something )

例句：

Yet to this day they tend to tiptoe around Muslims as a distinct market segment.

而今他们应对穆斯林这个决然不同的市场时总是小心翼翼。

2. 避免谈论令人不快的或者有争议的事情(to avoid speaking about a painful or controversial issue)

例句：

In 1940, Franklin Roosevelt tried to tiptoe around the war question and when that didn't wash, he simply lied about it.

1940年，罗斯福想悄悄地规避战争问题。当他这样做瞒不了人时，他干脆说谎。

今天朋友在看美剧Gossip Girl的时候遇到了这个tiptoe around，顺便分享一下这段对白：

Vanessa: I gotta go. So I will see you later at the library, and I'm sorry about before with the Tisch catalog.

（我得走了 一会儿我们在图书馆见吧 还有之前Tisch项目的事情, 我很抱歉。）

Dan: It's fine.

（没什么）

Vanessa: Dan, I don't know how to do this. We've been tiptoeing around each other for days.

（Dan 我不知道该怎么办 这几天我们都在回避着彼此。）

Dan: Look, we're... we're two artists in a relationship,and sometimes we're gonna be competing for the same things,So,

all right, we're... we're... we're smart people.

（听着， 我们是... 两个在恋爱当中的艺术家，有时候我们会为了某一件事情而共同竞争，所以没什么的 ，我们是... 我们是聪明人。）