put someone through their paces
(Redirected from put one through one's paces)
English
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Verb
[edit]put (someone) through (their) paces (third-person singular simple present puts (someone) through (their) paces, present participle putting (someone) through (their) paces, simple past and past participle put (someone) through (their) paces)
- (literally, equestrianism) To direct a horse to walk, canter, trot, etc.
- 1916, Vance Barnum, Joe Strong on the Trapeze[1]:
- She put Rosebud through his paces in the ring, and received her share of applause at the antics of the clever horse.
- (figurative) To test several or all functions or training of a person, animal, machine, etc.
- The new fire chief really put us through our paces: we had to wash all the fire trucks and then had two different fire drills.
- When I test-drove the new car, the salesman let me take it out to the freeway to put it through its paces.
- 1876 June, Mark Twain, “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut”, in The Atlantic[2]:
- I have known consciences to come all the way from China and Russia to see a person of that kind put through his paces, on a special occasion.
- 2008 July 21, Megan McArdle, “Exurbs delenda est”, in The Atlantic[4]:
- I had my first taste of a collapsing exurb last night. On our way home from the beach, a friend and I decided to put the GPS through its paces and have the thing find us a grocery store close to our route.
- 2014 March 27, “Mars yard ready for Red Planet rover”, in ESA[5], archived from the original on 2020-10-23:
- A state-of-the-art ‘Mars yard’ is now ready to put the ExoMars rover through its paces before the vehicle is launched to the Red Planet in 2018.
- 2016 August 5, Justin McCurry, “Last supper? Japan's diners divided over killer puffer fish”, in The Guardian[6], →ISSN:
- “The hardest part is ensuring the parts that can be eaten are absolutely clean,” says Takahashi, one of dozens of chefs being put through their paces at a culinary school in Tokyo in preparation for a test to obtain their fugu licence.