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Lick into shape
Definitions
- 1 To exert considerable effort to change (someone or something) into a desired state. idiomatic, transitive
"[…] Men did not knovv hovv to mould and frame it [the doctrine of transubstantiation]; but at laſt it vvas licked into ſhape; the vvhole Philoſophy being caſt into ſuch a Mould as agreed vvith it."
Etymology
From the medieval notion that bear cubs were born shapeless, and that the mother would lick them into the shape of a bear; see, for example, The Anatomy of Melancholy (2nd edition, 1624) by Robert Burton (spelling modernized): “I should have revised, corrected, and amended this Tract; but I had not (as I say) that happy leisure, no Amanuenses’ assistance, and was therefore enforced, as a Bear doth her whelps, to bring forth this confused lump, and had not time to lick it into form, as she doth her young ones, but even so to publish it, as it was first written, […].”
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