get to the bottom of
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
discover the truth or cause of something
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
phát hiện sự thật hoặc nguyên nhân của điều gì đó
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: reach the lowest part of something
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
In er,, you know, we only reversed when we got to the bottom of that last machine, and why had the guy back, erm, went over it, and go through it again, luckily it was only three high.
This is a very common response, and it's nothing to worry about as long as you realize that the manager's emphasis has to be on getting the unit to run efficiently.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “get to the bottom of” mean?
discover the truth or cause of something Literally: reach the lowest part of something
Is “get to the bottom of” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.