business end

English edit

business end (plural business ends)

(idiomatic) The part of a tool or weapon that is physically used for its operation, rather than the part which is held.
The business end of a hammer is known as the "head".
- 1962 April, R. K. Evans, “The Acceptance Testing of Diesel Locomotives”, in Modern Railways, page 268:
  Speed by now was now down to 25 m.p.h., but that universal tool, the insulated screwdriver, with its business end gingerly applied to the relay coil, enabled us to keep going as far as Grantham, where a more permanent remedy could be effected.
- 2015, Clutch, A Quick Death in Texas:
  The preacher stood up from his table, in his right hand he held a bible (hey-hey) / And in his left, the business end of a Winchester rifle
(idiomatic, by extension) The part of anything that is most important and that produces the significant result.
- 1973, Lyall Watson, Supernature, page iii. 102:
  There is even an example of convergent evolution at a molecular level in two enzymes, one from soil bacteria and the other from man, which have exactly the same patterns of amino acids at the "business ends."
- 2018 July 7, Phil McNulty, “Sweden 0-2 England”, in BBC Sport‎^[1]:
  On this day, with expectation rising and the unmistakable feeling around this sweeping Samara Stadium that the World Cup is really reaching the business end, England delivered.