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Glite Dictionary
to write the book on

to write the book on

6 7.6
To be the leading expert on a subject
  • idiom
: ser la autoridad en
  • And we've got with us Doctor Deandra Leslie Palecki, who wrote the book on the physics of NASCAR.
  • literally wrote the book on
  • wrote the book on the subject

Edward Bernays wrote the book on this called The Engineering of Consent.

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Examples

  • Besides writing the book on podcasting, she's published short stories, written stories for 15 role-playing games, one textbook, and scores of podcasting scripts.

    Blog text (33)

  • You practically wrote the book on bank fraud.

    Catch Me If You Can (2002)

  • I heard you basically wrote the book on evolutionary biology.

    The Predator (2018)

  • Andrew Stein's the guy who wrote the book on the subject.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Edward Bernays wrote the book on this called The Engineering of Consent.

    Dad Saves America

  • This man's father wrote the book on submarine warfare.

    Phantom (2013)

  • He literally wrote the book on how to be an ethical and professional telesales person in an industry that sorely needed it.

    Blog text (33)

  • Drummond looks bored and at times frustrated, but he wrote the book on how to conduct all-day depositions, and his meter is ticking too.

    Fiction book (1995)

  • Oh, listen, my father wrote the book on child development.

  • I heard you basically wrote the book on evolutionary biology.

How Knowledgeable

to write the book on
6 7.6
to know about
∞ 1.5

Surface Forms

write the book on infinitive
wrote the book on past
written the book on past participle
writing the book on present participle
writes the book on third person singular

Morphology

write + the + book + on

The literal composition 'write' + 'book' + 'on' clearly yields 'author a book about (a topic)', so the base sense is transparent from the constituents. However, the MWE's conventionalized extension meaning 'to be a leading authority' is a pragmatic/metaphorical inference (authoring implies expertise) that is not fully predictable without cultural or usage knowledge, so a B1 learner may not reliably derive the idiomatic sense.

Etymology

The phrase write the book on comes from the simple image of someone who writes a whole book about a subject; if you 'wrote the book', others learn from you and you are the expert, so it means 'to be the leading authority'.