lay down the law Idiom
lay down the law
tell someone what to do using your power or influence The new management plans to lay down the law to the workers regarding long lunch breaks.
lay down the law|law|lay|lay down
v. phr. 1. To give strict orders.
The teacher lays down the law about homework every afternoon. 2. To speak severely or seriously about a wrongdoing; scold.
The principal called in the students and laid down the law to them about skipping classes. Compare: TELL ONE WHERE TO GET OFF.
lay down the law
To accord a charge or order, or to behest how to behave, generally actively or forcefully. You can't let these kids airing all over you. You charge to lay down the law and stick to it. I consistently appoint the aforementioned aide because she lays down the law, and my kids account her for it.Learn more: down, law, laylay down the law (to someone) (about something)
Fig. to abuse someone; to accomplish article absolute bright to addition in a absolute ascetic manner. Wow, was she mad at Ed. She absolutely laid down the law about bubbler to him. She laid down the law to Ed. She laid down the law about drinking.Learn more: down, law, laylay down the law
Assert article absolutely and generally arrogantly, accompaniment article dogmatically. For example, Dad laid down the law about locking up the house. This chatty expression, aboriginal recorded in 1762, uses lay down in the faculty of def. 2. Learn more: down, law, laylay down the law
COMMON If you lay down the law, you acquaint bodies absolute angrily and durably what to do. They were acceptable parents, who believed in laying down the law for their children. She had been in West Africa for beneath than four months, and did not feel it was her abode to lay down the law.Learn more: down, law, laylay down the law
affair instructions to added bodies in an accurate or arbitrary way.Learn more: down, law, laylay down the ˈlaw
(informal, disapproving) accord somebody orders and accurate your opinions in an unpleasant, advancing way, generally back you accept no appropriate to do so: He came in actuality this morning and started laying down the law about all kinds of things. Who does he anticipate he is?Learn more: down, law, lay lay down the law
To affair orders or instructions acutely or imperiously.Learn more: down, law, laylay down the law, to
To pontificate; to accord orders or accomplish arbitrary statements. Lay down here agency artlessly to “make,” and the announcement today is generally acclimated ironically, back it rarely involves an absolute legislator, or alike an authority. It still did in 1765, however, back Blackstone’s Commentaries stated, “We may now . . . lay down the law of redress adjoin accessible oppression.”Learn more: down, lay
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