boil down
Britishverb
-
to reduce or be reduced in quantity and usually altered in consistency by boiling
to boil a liquid down to a thick glue
-
-
(intr) to be the essential element in something
-
(tr) to summarize; reduce to essentials
-
-
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]
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.
GE Vernova is another stock that boils down to strong demand for AI.
From Barron's
Based on these past experiences, the most important issues for global markets boils down to this: How long will the oil-price shock last?
From MarketWatch
Faster charging boils down to technology in the charger and technology in the car.
From Barron's
Faster charging boils down to technology in the charger and technology in the car.
From Barron's
Missing the entire 2000-01 season, his audition effectively boiled down to four games with Inter at the end of the next, scoring four times.
From BBC
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
