Share your idioms
He's a really strict teacher, so he'll definitely lower the boom on you if you don't do your homework.
Well, Mom lowered the boom on me and grounded me for a month because I came home after curfew again.
The boss really lowered the boom on us this week... he was furious that we failed to meet our sales targets and some of my co-workers are afraid that they might lose their jobs.
I used demerits to lower the boom on silliness in my class.
The idiom “lower the boom” has a nautical origin.
A Boom: The horizontal support for the foot of the mainsail which extends aft of the mast. This is what you want to watch out for when changing directions in a sailboat. It can give you quite a wallop on the head if it hits you.
Booms are also used backstage in theatres to move scenery. If someone actually lowered a boom upon your head, you would be knocked out! If you were struck in the head by the boom, you would be rendered unconscious and awaken with a rather nasty headache!
“Lower the boom” means to chastise rather sternly and harshly reprimand someone who did something bad. It means to be scolded and severely punished. When someone “lowers the boom” they are acting forcefully in their punishment. “Lowers the boom” is another way of saying “throw the book” at him. This is not a particularly popular saying and isn’t used rarely. It does, however, show case how rich the English language is, drawing from a wide range of sources.
