Bring someone to their knees
Posted by Sauerkraut on September 04, 2000
In Reply to: Bring someone to their knees posted by Roy Rogers on August 20, 2000
: : : What does it mean to "bring someone to their knees"?
: : : Is there such a phrase?
: : : If so, what does it mean?
: : : Thanks.
: : Yes, there is such an expression. To bring someone to his (or her) knees is to best the person in a contest. If you bring a person to his knees, he loses and you win. I don't know the origin. But I am guessing that it refers to arm-wrestling. A person is straining to win and slides off his chair to his knees. That is, as I said, a guess.
: :
: I think that "Bringing someone to their knees" has much older and more life threatening origins than "arm wrestling". When an opponent was bested in a fight, he fell to his knees to beg for mercy that the fight should end and he be spared.
Another thought, but no documentation - if an opponent in a fight was hit hard enough, he would fall to his knees from the blow itself.