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Reader question: Please explain "lock in" in this sentence: Coach congratulated the team and told us to rest up and lock in on our next opponent. My comments: After winning a game, apparently. Coach asked players to take a good rest and come back focused on the next opponent, without letup. That's what it means to lock in on something. Literally, locking in means, for example to get someone inside a room, then lock the door, leaving them inside the room, safe and secure. Safe and secure, perhaps, but also trapped. To physically lock someone or something inside a particular place is to trap them or it there. Obviously, prisoners are locked up in their cell. It is from this sense of being confined to a place that people learned to use this phrase figuratively. To lock in on something mentally, for example, is to focus on it. In our example, it is to focus on the next game. Firmly focus on the next game, as "lock" implies security and steadfastness, meaning the players will remain firm and committed to the next game, firm and resolute and unwavering. All right, here are media examples of "lock in" in various forms: 1. Roger Federer will look to punch his ticket to the third round of the Australian Open for the 15th consecutive year on Day 4 when he squares off against world No. 99 Blaz Kavcic in Round 2 at Melbourne Park. The two players have never met before, but the sixth-seeded Federer will enter as a heavy favorite. | 
