put the boot in
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to attack or criticize someone forcefully
Literally: kick with a boot
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
up to the rostrum to put the boot in.
When asked, ‘ What sort of fights?’, one of the lads replied, ‘ Well, not real fights, as some of them might be quite matey … when you put the boot in, you put the boot in, but we are friendly after, like’.
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 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “put the boot in” mean?
to attack or criticize someone forcefully Literally: kick with a boot
Is “put the boot in” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.