fall to

fall to idiom
Energetically begin an activity, set to work, as in As soon as they had the right tools, they fell to work on the house. This expression is also often used to mean “begin to eat.” Charles Dickens so used it in American Notes (1842): “We fall-to upon these dainties.” [Late 1500s]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

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