Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
📝 To summarize 🍲 To thicken by cooking
to boil down

to boil down

78 4.2
Come to the main point or idea
  • phrasal verb
  • /bɔɪl daʊn/
  • Informal
translation icon : reducirse a
  • And the reason really boils down to one word, you.
  • arguments boil down
  • issue boils down
  • boils down to one

For me, everything boils down to one key rule.

Autoplay Next

Examples

  • Self-government ultimately boils down to government by the majority of those voting.

    Academic text (2000)

  • John Goodlad puts it this way: "The central issue boils down to equal access to knowledge."

    Academic text (1991)

  • For me, everything boils down to one key rule.

    Film Courage

  • And yeah, it all boils down to just being happy.

    High Performance

  • So this idea really boils down to the following concept.

    WIRED

  • So I think that it boils down to people and relationships.

  • The whole conflict thus boils down to a question of degree.

    Harvard University

  • And I think that, you know, boils down to me to one simple equation.

  • That's what it boils down to.

    The Burial (2023)

  • After all the discussions, it really boils down to whether we can trust each other.

Synonyms

to come down
vsto boil down
361 4.0

To depend on the main point

focuses on the main or most important aspect rather than the final summary
to reduce
vsto boil down
71 2.8

To make something simpler by cutting out details

describes the main or most important aspect rather than the simplifying action

How Simple

to simplify
99 2.5
to boil down
  • Informal
78 4.2
to summarize
  • US
90 3.0

Surface Forms

boil down infinitive
boiled down past
boiled down past participle
boiling down present participle
boils down third person singular

Morphology

boil + down

The phrase uses a clear metaphor of boiling as concentrating or reducing a substance, so 'boil down to X' means to reduce an issue to its essentials — a link that is present between the literal verb and the idiomatic sense. However, this cooking-to-reduction metaphor and the particle 'down' role require a degree of figurative inference that a B1 learner who only knows the single-word meanings may not reliably make, so the expression is only partially predictable.

Etymology

Boil down for an idea uses the same cooking picture: as you boil something, the small, unimportant parts disappear and only the strong, main part is left as it goes down. So it means 'to reduce something to its main point'.