boil down

Questions about boil down

What does boil down mean?

boil down means "be the essential element". That is the primary sense; the word has 3 in total, listed in full on this page.

What is another word for boil down?

Close synonyms include reduce, come down, reduce, decoct, concentrate. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is boil down a common word?

boil down is banded "Familiar" — widely understood, used when the subject calls for it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.