Force Someone's Hand

Welcome to English in a Minute!

Forcing something to happen takes effort, power, strength.

Forcing someone’s hand sounds painful.

How did your talk go with Rupert?

Not good. I had to fire him.

You fired him?

But we really need him on this project.

I didn’t plan to!

He forced my hand!

He refused to work on the project.

He wanted to do other work instead.

Yeah. I guess he did force your hand.

When you force someone’s hand, you make them act or speak before they are ready.

You give them no other choice.

This expression probably comes probably comes from card games.

Sometimes you are forced to play one of your cards before you really want to.

And that’s English in a Minute!