iron fist

1. 1.

   rigorous or ruthless control

   “she rules the office with an iron fist”

   “it takes an iron fist to contain the dissenting factions”

   Broadercontrol

Questions about iron fist

What does iron fist mean?

iron fist means "rigorous or ruthless control".

Is iron fist a common word?

iron fist is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.