show who's boss

Verb

show who's boss (third-person singular simple present shows who's boss, present participle showing who's boss, simple past showed who's boss, past participle shown who's boss)

1. (idiomatic, intransitive) To demonstrate oneself to be dominant; to show that one has the upper hand.
   • When children are young, spanking is a familiar device to show who's boss.1975, Dorothy Corkille Briggs, Your Child's Self-esteem: The Key to Life, →ISBN, page 234
   • Israeli soldiers . . . impose the curfews as collective punishment or as a means to head off violent protest, or simply to show who's boss.1989 June 24, Alan Cowell, “Coping With Curfew in Gaza”, in New York Times, retrieved 11 Jun 2015
2. (idiomatic, transitive) To demonstrate that one is dominant over or superior to someone; to establish that one has control of some device or intractable object.
   • "Bimeby I show yoh who's boss. I make yoh cry for Ramon be good to yoh!"1916, B. M. Bower, chapter 21, in The Heritage of the Sioux
   • A typewriter once put me in such evil temper that I threw it out a second-floor window. . . . Replacing it cost $100 or so—a small price to pay for the pleasure of showing a machine who's boss.1995 March 14, Russell Baker, “Fat Is Easier”, in New York Times, retrieved 11 Jun 2015

   Synonyms:

   teach someone who's the boss