ring down the curtain on

Idioms  

1. Bring something to an end, as in We'd best get to that grand old hotel before they ring down the curtain on it. This idiom alludes to the old practice of signaling that a theater curtain be lowered at the ring of a bell. Similarly, ring up the curtain on refers to a bell rung to begin a performance and came to mean starting anything, as in Their contribution rang up the curtain on the fund drive. The figurative use of these terms dates from the early 1900s.

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Example Sentences

So during this peculiar betwixt-and-between moment of ours, with one administration packing its bags and the next one trying to get its bearings, a question of immense significance to the future course of American statecraft presents itself: Will the United States at long last ring down the curtain on the most endless of its endless wars?

From Salon

In the end, though, he didn't so much ring down the curtain on "The Colbert Report" -- Comedy Central's scathingly hilarious sendup of political posturing and the culture of uninformed narcissism --  as he finally, and most genially, pulled it aside.

From Los Angeles Times

By the time Tim Southee hustled one through Joe Root's desperate 10th-wicket heave to ring down the curtain on England's first innings at 204, New Zealand were in such a strong position, with a lead of 239, that they might, with some measure of comfort, have been able to enforce the follow-on and have another crack at England's tottering batting.

From The Guardian

Just a year earlier, in “The Fire Next Time,” Baldwin wrote, “The Negroes of this country may never be able to rise to power, but they are very well placed indeed to precipitate chaos and ring down the curtain on the American dream.”

From New York Times

Whatever else the moves implied, it appeared that Gorbachev had found a novel and relatively graceful way to ring down the curtain on an era while continuing his rejuvenation of the Politburo.

From Time Magazine Archive