Meaning:
A threat of violence.
Background:
This phrase has been current in the UK since the early 1990s. Of course,
there's more to this than the literal meaning of the words. What's implied is
that the aggressors have the information to locate their victim at home and
intend to seek them out there and attack them.
This piece from The Times, June 1992 reported death threats to Dessa Trevisan
their correspondent in Belgrade and included this threat made by 'unidentified
men', outside Belgrade's International Press Centre:
"We know where you live. We will break down your door and come to finish you."
In the King James Version of the Bible, Revelations 2:13, there is the line:
'I know thy works, and where thou dwellest'
The 'we know where you live' thugs aren't likely to be Biblical scholars
though and that's hardly likely to be the source of the recent phrase.
- www.phrases.org.uk
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The phrase in the following paragraph struck me as idiomatic while I was
reading 'In the Woods' by Tana French,
She says when she answered (the phone) he said, "Are you Devlin's
daughter?" and she said, "I'm Katy," and he said, "Katy, tell your father
to back off the bloody motorway, because I know where you live."
and I looked it up and there it was!
