Idiom meaning, usage examples, facts

1. Can I borrow $10 from you? I’m in a bind. The banks have closed and I need to stop at the supermarket on the way home.
2. Sam is really in a fix. He accepted a job last Friday that he doesn’t particularly want because he didn’t think he would get a better offer. Now he has been offered a job he wants, but he doesn’t know how to get out of the first job.

Synonyms: over a barrel; between the devil and the deep blue sea; between a rock and a hard place. In a bind is less dramatic than these last two expressions, which would be used when a problem has no apparent solution. Between the devil and the deep blue sea and between a rock and a hard place would not be appropriate in the situations presented in sentences 1 or 3, for example.