dog-eat-dog
[dawg-eet-dawg, dog-eet-dog]
- marked by destructive or ruthless competition; without self-restraint, ethics, etc.: It's a dog-eat-dog industry.
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- complete egotism; action based on utter cynicism: The only rule of the marketplace was dog-eat-dog.
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Origin of dog-eat-dog
First recorded in 1930–35
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for dog-eat-dog
Contemporary Examples
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.
Historical Examples
If we eventually lick the Kradens, one of the very reasons will be because we're a dog-eat-dog society.
Medal of HonorDallas McCord Reynolds
I 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-ThreeBertrand W. Sinclair
dog-eat-dog
Ruthlessly competitive: “You have to look out for your own interests; it's a dog-eat-dog world.”
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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.