From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishbring somebody/something to their kneesbring somebody/something to their kneesa) BEAT/DEFEATto defeat a country or group of people in a war The bombing was supposed to bring the country to its knees. b) HARM/BE BAD FORto have such a bad effect on an organization, activity etc that it cannot continue SYN cripple The recession has brought many companies to their knees. → knee
Examples from the Corpus
bring somebody/something to their knees• The recession has brought many companies to their knees.• He yelled for union solidarity to support the strike and to bring management to their knees, but to no avail. 