short strokes en · NOUN
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
Etymology
Possibly an allusion to painting, in which a painter typically finishes a work with short, careful, finishing strokes of the paint brush, or to golf, in which a player concludes each hole by making short strokes with a putter.
Meanings
-
(idiomatic, plural, plural-only, qualifier:usually preceded by the) The final steps of an undertaking, especially one which has been lengthy or laborious.
Sly and Dave Chandler having set the deal, and Al McAfee moving in to do the legal fine points, Maxwell and Johnson tumbled into our lap for just over a million in cash up front and about twice that in Slumberhaven stock and options. I didn't even have to get involved, except for the short strokes toward the end.
2006, William Annett, The Final Undertaking, →ISBN, page 87:He knows they are in the short strokes—it's almost over.
1990, M. E. Morris, The Last Kamikaze, →ISBN, page 242:Ironing out the short strokes has taken a little longer than expected, but it all should be worth the wait for Strawberry when the Yankees officially announce today they have re-signed the rehabbed slugger.
1998 January 8, Peter Botte, “Straw Signing Official Today”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 18 May 2009:
-
(idiomatic, plural, plural-only) Bare essentials.
She can evoke an entire scene in short strokes, as in this from "The Wamsutter Wolf": "This trailer was in ruins, broken-backed because its west end had slipped off the cinder-block supports. All the windows had been shot out."
2005, Martin Levin, "Shelf Life" (review of Close Range by Annie Proulx), Globe and Mail (Canada), 15 Jan., p. D13
Deriveds
Relateds
Synonyms
final effort (final steps) · last gasp (final steps) · finishing touches (final steps)
Translations (1)
fi loppusuora (final steps of an undertaking)