drive home
Make clearly understood, make a point, as in The network news programs drive home the fact that violence is part of urban life. This expression uses the verb drive in the sense of “force by a blow or thrust” (as in driving a nail). Samuel Hieron used it in Works (1607): “That I may ... drive home the nail of this exhortation even to the head.”
RELATED CONTENT
RELATED WORDS
stress, set, fix, inculcate, press, establish, instill, reiterate, continue, drudge, endeavor, grind, instruct, persevere, persist, repeat, work
Nearby words
- drivage,
- drive,
- drive a hard bargain,
- drive a nail into one's coffin,
- drive at,
- drive screw,
- drive shaft,
- drive someone crazy,
- drive time,
- drive to drink
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.