get a handle on (something)

get a handle on (something)

To have a firm, clear understanding or determination of something. Go down to the circuit breaker and see if you can get a handle on what's causing the power outages. I'd gotten a pretty good handle on the concept after spending an hour with the tutor.

See also: get, handle, on

Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2015 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.

get a handle on

see under get a fix on.

See also: get, handle, on

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

get a handle on something

INFORMAL

COMMON If you get a handle on a subject or problem, you understand it and know how to deal with it. When you have got a handle on your anxiety you can begin to control it. Note: You can also say that someone has a handle on a subject or problem to mean that they understand it and know how to deal with it. We don't really have a handle on why some people survive for longer periods than others.

See also: get, handle, on, something

Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed. © HarperCollins Publishers 2012

get a handle on

find a means of understanding, controlling, or approaching a person or situation.

2000 Farm Chemicals Getting a handle on what that profitability is can be challenging unless you are willing to do some specific cost tracking on your site-specific investment.

See also: get, handle, on

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

get/have a handle on somebody/something

(informal) become/be familiar with and so understand somebody/something: I can’t really get a handle on the situation here. What’s happening?

See also: get, handle, have, on, somebody, something

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

get a handle on something, to

To succeed in dealing with a difficult problem. Dating from the mid-twentieth century, this slangy Americanism alludes to coping with a cumbersome object by attaching a handle to it. However, “handle” has been used both figuratively and literally in several ways for many years. “Most things have two Handles; and a wise Man takes hold of the best,” wrote Thomas Fuller in Gnomologia (1732). Further, “handle” has been a colloquialism for a title, and by extension a name, since about 1800. The current saying, on its way to becoming a cliché, thus can allude either to getting a secure hold on a slippery problem, or to identifying it correctly by naming it. A synonym for the former sense is get a grip on something, meaning to take a firm hold on it. See also get a grip.

See also: get, handle, on, to

The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer Copyright © 2013 by Christine Ammer