Meaning
To announce that you are entering a contest, most often to stand as a candidate in an election, or to accept a challenge that others have declined. Implies a voluntary, public act of putting yourself forward. Neutral to lightly colourful journalistic idiom, strongly associated with election campaigns. Regional use: General English.
Origin
The ring here is a boxing ring, and in the early nineteenth century that meant a circle formed by spectators rather than a roped platform. A man who fancied a bout is said to have tossed his hat into it as a dependable way of signalling a challenge over the noise of the crowd. The Phrase Finder's earliest citation is from The Sporting Magazine of 1805, in which the celebrated boxer Belcher 'threw his hat into the ring, as an act of defiance'; the first clearly challenge-related use it records is from The Mirror of Taste, published in Philadelphia in 1810, where an umpire calls 'a challenge' after a young fellow throws his hat in, and announces 'the challenge is answered' when a second hat follows. The gesture transferred naturally to political candidacy, and the idiom is now standard vocabulary of election coverage, especially in the United States.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- chuck your hat in the ring (British, informal)
- hat in the ring
- throw one's hat into the ring
- toss your hat in the ring
Usage Examples
- After weeks of speculation the senator threw her hat in the ring for the leadership contest.
- If nobody else volunteers to coach the under-tens, I will throw my hat in the ring.
- He tossed his hat into the ring for union president, promising to fight the rota changes.