cut someone's throat

Idioms  

1. Be the means of someone's ruin, as in Joe would cut her throat if she got in his way . One can also cut one's own throat , that is, spoil one's own chances, as in Alice cut her own throat by her repeated absences . This hyperbolic term alludes to actual murder (or suicide). [c. 1500]

2. cut one another's throats . Engage in destructive competition. For example, With their price war the two stores were cutting each other's throats . This usage gave rise, by 1880, to the idiom cutthroat competition , for vicious competitive practices.

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Example Sentences

Trainees were also shown how to cut someone's throat with the bayonet from an AK-47.

From Reuters

“They cut someone’s throat, a white man.”

From New York Times

Bradford Coroner's Court was told Mr Lad searched the internet on "how to cut someone's throat and executions" .

From BBC

Instead, “Everyone cut someone’s throat,” Houssien Elouassaki told his brother Abdel over the phone.

From The New Yorker

An Iranian friend of mine quotes a saying in Farsi that when you cut someone’s throat, you do it with cotton—in other words, slowly, subtly, and so it is barely felt.

From Time