take down a notch
Also, take down a peg. Deflate or humble someone, as in He's so arrogant that I wish someone would take him down a notch, or That defeat took them down a peg. Both notch and peg in this idiom allude to a series, the former of indentations, the latter of knobs, used to raise or lower something. Specifically, peg alludes to the pegs used to lower a ship's colors. Their figurative use dates from the second half of the 1600s. Also see cut down, def. 4.
QUIZZES
CHALLENGE YOURSELF WITH THIS MIDDLE SCHOOL PART OF SPEECH QUIZ!
How well do you know your adjectives from your adverbs? Your preposition from your pronouns? Your interjections from your conjunctions? Let’s put your knowledge of parts of speech to the text!
Note: Many of the following questions will ask you to identify the parts of speech “in order.” That means the first word in all capital letters will correspond to the first option in an answer, and so on.
Question 1 of 10
In order, what parts of speech are the words in all capital letters? Alisa was VERY tired, SO she decided to go to bed.
Words nearby take down a notch
take care of, take charge, take cover, take doing, take down, take down a notch, take effect, take exception to, take five, take flight, take for
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.