show who's boss

present singular third person shows who's boss · participle present showing who's boss · past showed who's boss · participle past shown who's boss · alternative show who's the boss

1. idiomaticintransitiveTo 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

   2 more examples

   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

   So tomorrow a patriotic Russian hacker might just start breaking into private email servers of American companies and releasing their contents, just to show who’s boss.

   2015 February 12, Anna Lysyanskaya, “Want better data privacy? Demand it”, in Providence Journal, retrieved 11 Jun 2015

2. idiomatictransitiveTo demonstrate that one is dominant over or superior to someone; to establish that one has control of some device or intractable object.

   Think of it as, uh... a second chance to show 'em who's boss.

   2025 June 20, Gooseworx, “Untitled” (22:52 from the start), in The Amazing Digital Circus, episode 5, spoken by Pomni (Lizzie Freeman)

   3 more examples

   "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

   [H]e decided to show Gates who's boss the only way he knew how—by whipping out his handcuffs and abusing his power to arrest.

   2009 July 25, Lawrence O'Donnell Jr, “The Stupidity of the Gates Arrest”, in Time, retrieved 11 Jun 2015

   Synonyms: teach someone who's the boss