the.com/lay of the land
The map before the plan — scout first, trip over nothing later.
means The current state of a situation, surveyed before you decide how to act.
from Literal before figurative: this was once a real surveyor's phrase for the physical contours of terrain — hills, water, the way fields lay — essential knowledge before farming, building, or marching an army through it. By the 19th century it had widened into a metaphor for sizing up any situation, business, social, or otherwise, before committing to a move.
- origin
- from surveying literal terrain before farming it
- modern use
- now means office politics, not actual dirt
- smart move
- asking for it before asking for anything else
- opposite
- charging in blind and calling it confidence