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View synonyms for cut to the quick

cut to the quick



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Idioms and Phrases

Deeply wound or distress, as in His criticism cut her to the quick . This phrase uses the quick in the sense of a vital or a very sensitive part of the body, such as under the fingernails. It also appeared in such older locutions as touched to the quick , for “deeply affected,” and stung to the quick , for “wounded, distressed,” both dating from the early 1500s. The current expression was considered a cliché from about 1850 on.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from 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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