skin alive

Idioms and Phrases

Punish severely, as in If I find the guy who slashed my tire I'll skin him alive . This hyperbolic expression transfers the barbaric practice of flaying a live prisoner to other forms of punishment. [ Colloquial mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

Baxley looked at him and then looked back at me and said, “The rangers didn’t want those Indians. It’s John here they wanted to skin alive.”

From The New Yorker

I give thee, Bird, advice; If thou wouldst save thy skin alive, Let me not warn thee twice, "Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack— Go on and ne'er look back!"

From Project Gutenberg

Tell your daughters," he said, "that we will skin alive any girl we find with an American.

From Time Magazine Archive

And again he was reported to have, with unrelenting temper, represented to his friends in secret council, that, “It was for our safety not to spare one white skin alive.”

From Project Gutenberg

Better fight dan be skin alive!”

From Project Gutenberg

Related Words

• assail
• berate
• damn
• decry
• defame
• denigrate
• denounce
• disparage
• malign
• mistreat
• revile
• slander
• smear