cross the Rubicon

To make an irrevocable decision; it comes from the name of the river Julius Caesar crossed with his army, thereby starting a civil war in Rome . ( See Rubicon .)

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Idioms and Phrases

Irrevocably commit to a course of action, make a fateful and final decision. For example, Once he submitted his resignation, he had crossed the Rubicon . This phrase alludes to Julius Caesar's crossing the Rubicon River (between Italy and Gaul) in 49 b.c. , thereby starting a war against Pompey and the Roman Senate. Recounted in Plutarch's Lives: Julius Caesar (c. a.d. 110), the crossing gave rise to the figurative English usage by the early 1600s.

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

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