dog-eat-dog
marked by destructive or ruthless competition; without self-restraint, ethics, etc.: It's a dog-eat-dog industry.
complete egotism; action based on utter cynicism: The only rule of the marketplace was dog-eat-dog.
Origin of dog-eat-dog
1Words Nearby dog-eat-dog
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024
How to use dog-eat-dog in a sentence
The cannibalism is, in typical Sondheim fashion, a cheeky metaphor for the dog-eat-dog capitalism of the day.
His plays have typically been dog-eat-dog affairs; it makes sense that he views politics as trench warfare.
The book world's increasingly dog-eat-dog climate works against writers like Abrahams.
If we eventually lick the Kradens, one of the very reasons will be because we're a dog-eat-dog society.
Medal of Honor | Dallas McCord ReynoldsI cannot live by the dog-eat-dog code that seems to prevail wherever folk get jammed together in an unwieldy social mass.
North of Fifty-Three | Bertrand W. Sinclair
If it's got to be dog eat dog, and no gents need apply at a firemen's muster, then here's where we have our part of the lunch.
The Skipper and the Skipped | Holman DayNo one could have characterized the kind of thing he had done more severely than he when he called it dog eat dog.
The March Family Trilogy, Complete | William Dean HowellsIt was a half-ludicrous, half-horrible "dog eat dog," an unspeakable cannibalism.
The Octopus | Frank Norris
Cultural definitions for dog-eat-dog
Ruthlessly competitive: “You have to look out for your own interests; it's a dog-eat-dog world.”
The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
Other Idioms and Phrases with dog-eat-dog
Ruthless acquisition or competition, as in With shrinking markets, it's dog eat dog for every company in this field. This contradicts a Latin proverb which maintains that dog does not eat dog, first recorded in English in 1543. Nevertheless, by 1732 it was put as “Dogs are hard drove when they eat dogs” (Thomas Fuller, Gnomologia).
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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