boil down

verb

1. to reduce or be reduced in quantity and usually altered in consistency by boiling

   to boil a liquid down to a thick glue

2. 1. (intr) to be the essential element in something

   2. (tr) to summarize; reduce to essentials

Idioms and Phrases

Simplify, summarize, or shorten, as in John finally managed to boil his thesis down to 200 pages .

boil down to . Be reducible to basic elements, be equivalent to. For example, What this issue boils down to is that the council doesn't want to spend more money . These metaphoric usages allude to reducing and concentrating a substance by boiling off liquid. [Late 1800s]

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