put the lid on (something)(redirected from puts the lid on)
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put the lid on (something)
1. To induce something's failure. Unfortunately, a broken leg put the lid on my vacation to the ski resort.
2. To quash or suppress something; to control something so as to keep it from flourishing, increasing, or succeeding. We need to put the lid on rumors about the company going bankrupt. We decided to put the lid on the project since we didn't have enough funds to see it through to the end.
put the lid on
Also, keep the lid on. Suppress, as in I don't know how but we'll have to put the lid on that rumor about her, or Let's keep the lid on our suspicions. The word lid here is used in the sense of "a cover for a container." [Early 1900s]
put the (or a) lid onput a stop to. informal
1996 Observer Nothing's final. I haven't put the lid on anything.
put the (tin) lid onbe the culmination of a series of acts or events that makes things unbearable. British informal
1999 Chris Dolan Ascension Day Mum found she was pregnant a month before the wedding, then Dad put the tin lid on it by getting himself laid off.