Meaning
To learn how a job, task or organization actually works, including its routines, methods and unwritten rules. It describes the settling-in period of any new role rather than formal instruction, and pairs with 'know the ropes' for the state of already being familiar. Neutral and mildly informal; practical and friendly in tone, with no negative connotation. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The usual derivation is nautical: on a sailing ship a new hand had to learn which of the many ropes hauled which sail, and a sailor who 'knew the ropes' was competent at his work. The Phrase Finder finds this the more convincing explanation but explicitly keeps the jury out, noting a rival theory from the theatre, where ropes raised the scenery. The earliest known print use is already figurative: James Skene's diary of an Italian journey in 1802 records 'You know the ropes and can give me good advice'. The first citation from a genuinely rope-filled setting is Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast (1840), where a captain 'who had been on the coast before and knew the ropes' takes the steering oar, and J. Timon's Opera Goer (1850) shows the phrase current in theatre slang with 'the belle of two weeks standing, who has learned the ropes'. The expression must have circulated in speech, presumably among sailors, before 1802, but nobody recorded it in writing earlier.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- know the ropes
- learning the ropes
- show someone the ropes
Usage Examples
- She spent her first fortnight learning the ropes in the newsroom before taking over the education patch.
- The retiring site manager stayed on for a month to show his successor the ropes.
- Once you know the ropes, the shift handover takes ten minutes instead of an hour.