Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
knock the corners off en · VERB
Meanings
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(ambitransitive) To accustom (a person) to the vicissitudes of life; to cure a person of naïveté, selfishness, etc. by exposure to reality.
That's the point. He needs a father to knock the corners off him and whip him into shape.'
2007, Csilla Toldy, Desert Skies, page 133:[…] these prefects, about ten of them, indulged any sadistic leanings they had by making our lives as difficult as possible. This was allowed to go unchecked by the staff who probably overlooked it as part of school life designed to knock the corners off.
2013, Daphne Coyne, A Surfeit of Aunts, page 66:
Forms