the ropes

the ropes

The details or knowhow about a specific situation, task, job, or role. I know there's a lot to take in, but your partner has been here for over 10 years and will show you the ropes. This class is intense! You're expected to know the ropes from day one.
See also: rope
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

*ropes

Fig. knowledge of how to do something; how to work something. (*Typically: know ~; learn ~; show someone ~; teach someone ~.) I'll be able to do my job very well when I know the ropes. John is very slow to learn the ropes.
See also: rope
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • ropes
  • show somebody/learn/know the ropes
  • know the ropes
  • know the ropes, to
  • go/set about your work
  • know the ins and outs (of something)
  • ins and outs
  • ins and outs, the
  • an uphill task
  • task
References in classic literature
The ropes of varying length prevented the dogs attacking from the rear those that ran in front of them.
Even Rivera's own seconds warmed to something akin to cheerfulness when Danny ducked jauntily through the ropes and entered the ring.
On coming within sight of it the cousin, Sancho, and Don Quixote dismounted, and the first two immediately tied the latter very firmly with the ropes, and as they were girding and swathing him Sancho said to him, "Mind what you are about, master mine; don't go burying yourself alive, or putting yourself where you'll be like a bottle put to cool in a well; it's no affair or business of your worship's to become the explorer of this, which must be worse than a Moorish dungeon."
Now I'll chase ye around a piece, callin' the ropes, an' you'll lay your hand on thim as I call."
Presently the beast dropped to the earth again and Tarzan came quickly to seize the rope, but Sabor had now found that it was only a slender cord that held her, and grasping it in her huge jaws severed it before Tarzan could tighten the strangling noose a second time.
The line originally used in the fishery was of the best hemp, slightly vapored with tar, not impregnated with it, as in the case of ordinary ropes; for while tar, as ordinarily used, makes the hemp more pliable to the rope-maker, and also renders the rope itself more convenient to the sailor for common ship use; yet, not only would the ordinary quantity too much stiffen the whale-line for the close coiling to which it must be subjected; but as most seamen are beginning to learn, tar in general by no means adds to the rope's durability or strength, however much it may give it compactness and gloss.
Then I made another discovery--there was a second message knotted in the rope at about the height of my head.
Fedallah; and then settling his firm relying eye upon the chief mate, said, -- Take the rope, sir --I give it into thy hands, Starbuck.
So they all got safely to the shore--some swimming, some flying; and those that climbed along the rope brought the Doctor's trunk and handbag with them.
He objected that the first two miles was a dead level, with plenty of room, and that the rope was never used except in very dangerous places.
Again and again, almost burning their palms, he tore the rope smoking through their hands.
If, for example, there should be a deposition of moisture upon the silk, and the machine begins to descend in consequence, there will be no necessity for discharging ballast to remedy the increase of weight, for it is remedied, or counteracted, in an exactly just proportion, by the deposit on the ground of just so much of the end of the rope as is necessary.
They fastened some of the burning pine-wood to the end of the rope, and let it slowly down to the bottom of the abyss.
When he gets home, he has the rope in his hand, and there is no longer anything hanging on to it.
The ape-man had acted so quickly that he had been unable to prepare himself to withstand the strain and shock of Numa's great weight upon the rope, and so it was that though the rope stopped the beast before his mighty talons could fasten themselves in the flesh of the black, the strain overbalanced Tarzan, who came tumbling to the ground not six paces from the infuriated animal.