boil down
Britishverb
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to reduce or be reduced in quantity and usually altered in consistency by boiling
to boil a liquid down to a thick glue
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(intr) to be the essential element in something
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(tr) to summarize; reduce to essentials
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Simplify, summarize, or shorten, as in John finally managed to boil his thesis down to 200 pages .
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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]
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Most importantly, he’s an excellent communicator who can boil down complex policy ideas into easily digestible concepts without dumbing them down.
From Salon ● Oct. 19, 2026
It will boil down to Sunday's singles, where all 12 players face off for the crucial points that will decide the winner.
From Barron's ● Sep. 12, 2026
OpenAI hit back at Apple’s allegations that it stole trade secrets, arguing in a late-night legal filing that many of the accusations boil down to poor offboarding procedures inside the iPhone maker.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 1, 2026
"A lot of it can sometimes boil down to luck."
From BBC ● Aug. 12, 2026
We used to discuss some of these matters, but we both knew the question would boil down to my saying, “Ted, you decide.”
From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan
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Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
