drop in someone's lap

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Idioms and Phrases

Give to someone suddenly or without warning. What is given may be desirable, as in I'm just going to drop the promotion in her lap this afternoon , or it may be burdensome, as in They simply dropped the employment problem in our laps . The former usage dates from the mid-1500s, the latter from the mid-1900s.

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

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