put through hoops
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to force someone to do many difficult or complicated things
Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt
buộc ai đó làm nhiều việc khó khăn hoặc phức tạp
Machine-translated — suggest a fix
Literally: to make an animal jump through hoops
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
The new employee was put through hoops during the training process
AI-drafted example auto-approved by rule (illustrative, not a corpus attestation)
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 through hoops” mean?
to force someone to do many difficult or complicated things Literally: to make an animal jump through hoops
Is “put through hoops” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.