Читать книгу Bees Knees and Barmy Armies - Origins of the Words and Phrases we Use Every Day - Harry Oliver - Страница 23

To ‘draw in (or pull in) your horns’ is an idiom that describes a decision to exercise self-restraint, or draw back from a previous position, in the interests of self-preservation. It is commonly used of a pragmatic response to a change in financial circumstances. The expression, thought to date back to the fourteenth century, refers to snails’ habit of retracting their horn-like eye stalks to protect them from imminent danger.