lick into shape
/ˌlɪk ɪn.tu ˈʃeɪ̯p/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.72 in modern English
24
Scrabble Score
13
Letters
2
Syllables
12
Unique Chars
Meaning
verb
To exert considerable effort to change (someone or something) into a desired state.
Transitive verb
Example Sentences
- "[…] Men did not knovv hovv to mould and frame it [the doctrine of transubstantiation]; but at laſt it vvas licked into ſhape; the vvhole Philoſophy being caſt into ſuch a Mould as agreed vvith it."
- ""People send us their cubs to lick into shape, and what can we do?" Now the answer to this query concerns parents rather closely: what and how much can the schoolmaster do to make the boy "sit up" who has not been to the manner bred?"
- "“I believe we’d just better train up for all we’re worth,” she said at the committee meeting. “It’ll take ages to lick an eleven into shape. What we want is to get a cricket atmosphere into the school. You can’t develop these things all in a few weeks. You’ve got to catch your kids young and teach them, before you get a school with a reputation. I feel with all the games that we’re simply building foundations at present at the Seaton High. This term especially is spade-work. I’ll do all I can to get things going, but it will be the Games Captain who comes after me who’ll reap the reward.”"
- "You're disgracing your pa and I feel for him. […] And I'd like to see him happy and comfortable, with his buttons on and his meals decent, and you young ones licked into shape, and that old cat of a Martha put in her proper place."
- "Believe me, Mr. Jellyband was in no two minds about "them murderin' furriners over yonder" who had done away with their King and Queen and all their nobility and quality, and whom England had at last decided to lick into shape."
- "After wrestling with this material whenever opportunity occurred during the next two or three weeks I got matters sorted out and sent the article to [Nigel] Gresley, mentioning in so doing that I felt it still required some licking into shape, and would he please be perfectly frank in dealing with it."
Etymology
From the medieval notion that bear cubs were born shapeless, and that the mother would lick them into the shape of a bear; see, for example, The Anatomy of Melancholy (2nd edition, 1624) by Robert Burton (spelling modernized): “I should have revised, corrected, and amended this Tract; but I had not (as I say) that happy leisure, no Amanuenses’ assistance, and was therefore enforced, as a Bear doth her whelps, to bring forth this confused lump, and had not time to lick it into form, as she doth her young ones, but even so to publish it, as it was first written, […].”
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /ˌlɪk ɪn.tu ˈʃeɪ̯p/
- British English: /ˌlɪk ɪn.tuː ˈʃeɪ̯p/