Meaning:
To transform a faulty object or venture into something that works effectively.
Background:
You don't need to watch many 1950s B-feature westerns before you come across
some hapless cowpoke getting a `licking'. That use of `lick', that is,
`thrash in a fight', is pretty much restricted to the USA, although it did
actually originate in England in the 1500s. Beating someone into shape sounds
as though it might be the source of `lick into shape' but it is in fact the
common use of `lick', that is, `pass the tongue over', a meaning that dates
from a few centuries earlier, that the phrase alludes to.
The first example I can find of the figurative use of the phrase is in
Gilbert Burnet's An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of
England, 1699:
"Men did not know how to mould and frame it; but at last it was licked into
shape."
`Lick into shape' sprang from the belief held in medieval Europe that bear
cubs were born shapeless and had to be made into ursine form by their
mother's licking.
- www.phrases.org.uk [edited]
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Matt got his blackbelt a year ago and had since moved to Truckee. He visited
back in January and taught a class. I chatted with him at the door as I was
leaving and he complimented me on my progress.
"I can take a beating today," I laughed, "and recover the next day to take
another one. That was all the progress I made."
I had some strength but was in no way gifted or super strong. I was not even as
technical as some of the guys. There was no magic. Only years of consistent
training licked me into shape.
