eat someone alive
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Forms: form: eats someone alive
form: eating someone alive
form: ate someone alive
form: eaten someone alive
Senses: examples: text: "This's nuts," his father said, but he spoke hollowly, with no strength. "If you go wandering around out there, you'll be eaten alive."
"No more than the coyote ate me alive when I got out of the cell," David said. "The danger isn't if I go out there; it's if we all stay in here."
ref: 1996, Stephen King, Desperation:
glosses: To consume a prey animal that is still alive, as many predators do.
examples: text: You may find that in June it rains so hard the streets are filled with a foot of mud and the mosquitoes eat people alive, but in October the place is beautiful.
ref: 1992 February, Mark Jenkins, “Beyond the Border: A Primer for Backpacking Abroad”, in Backpacker:
text: “Let's go into the house before these mosquitoes eat us alive.”
ref: 1996, Sandra Steffen, Not Before Marriage!, Silhouette Books, published 1996, →ISBN:
text: I had to keep close to the riverbank, under the edge of the jungle, with mosquitoes eating me alive.
ref: 2002, Jack Williamson, Dragon's Island and Other Stories, Five Star, published 2002, →ISBN, page 157:
glosses: To consume a prey animal that is still alive, as many predators do.
To bite repeatedly.
raw_tags: of insects
examples: text: She shook her head wearily, the guilt eating her alive.
ref: 2006, Lora Leigh, Megan's Mark, Berkley Sensation, published 2006, →ISBN:
text: Eventually, Randy moved through the shock and began to see that anger was eating him alive and poisoning his life.
ref: 2007, Lynn Anderson, They Smell Like Sheep, Volume 2: Leading with the Heart of a Shepherd, Howard Books, published 2007, →ISBN, page 169:
text: "How's Abby holding up?"
"She almost isn't." Keith sounded exhausted. "The guilt's eating her alive. […]
ref: 2009, Moira Rogers, Sanctuary Lost, Samhain Publishing, Ltd., published 2009, →ISBN, page 38:
text: [M]any low-income people are "unbanked" (not served by a financial institution), and thus nearly eaten alive by exorbitant fees.
ref: 2015 January 18, Charles M. Blow, “How expensive is it to be poor [print version: International New York Times, 20 January 2015, p. 7]”, in The New York Times:
glosses: To overwhelm or consume someone.
examples: text: However, the album never even made it onto the record charts, and the critics ate her alive.
ref: 2001, Mark Bego, Cher: If You Believe, Taylor Trade Publishing, published 2004, →ISBN, page 141:
text: The media ate them alive. Sympathetic coverage, like Emily White's 1992 L.A. Weekly cover story, devolved into patronizing, parasitic parodies of "pink, frilly bedrooms."
ref: 2010 October 10, Evelyn McDonnell, “Book Review: 'Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution' by Sara Marcus”, in Los Angeles Times:
text: For nearly the entire full four years of Frank's administration, the local media ate him alive for even the slightest misstep.
ref: 2011, Stephanie Parker-Weaver, Rebirth: "A Breast Cancer Journey of Many; Survival of Few": A Mississippi Civil Rights Activist's Biggest Battle How She Beat the Odds, Xlibris, published 2011, →ISBN, page 283:
glosses: To criticize harshly or rebuke strongly.
Synonyms: sense: criticize harshly or rebuke strongly
word: reprehend