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View synonyms for cross the Rubicon

cross the Rubicon

  1. To make an irrevocable decision; it comes from the name of the river Julius Caesar crossed with his army, thereby starting a civil war in Rome . ( See Rubicon .)


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Idioms and Phrases

Irrevocably commit to a course of action, make a fateful and final decision. For example, Once he submitted his resignation, he had crossed the Rubicon . This phrase alludes to Julius Caesar's crossing the Rubicon River (between Italy and Gaul) in 49 b.c. , thereby starting a war against Pompey and the Roman Senate. Recounted in Plutarch's Lives: Julius Caesar (c. a.d. 110), the crossing gave rise to the figurative English usage by the early 1600s.

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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.

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