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have someone by the balls

Idioms  

  1. Have someone at one's mercy, as in You have to pay up—they've got you by the balls. The balls here allude to the male genitals. [Vulgar slang; early 1900s]

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.