English Reference

Idiom

bring someone to their knees

Meaning

To defeat and make submit to orders.

Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Origin

Derived from the physical posture of kneeling as a gesture of submission before an individual in power. The image is one of enforced supplication, preserved in the language as a marker of total defeat.

Key words

Related idioms

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English Reference