hatchet job

American  

noun

1. a maliciously destructive critique or act.

   The special committee has done a hatchet job on the new proposal.

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hatchet job British  

noun

1. informal a malicious or devastating verbal or written attack

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hatchet job Idioms  

1. see hatchet man, def. 2.

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Etymology

Origin of hatchet job

First recorded in 1940–45

Example Sentences

The groundbreaking first film - Ricky Gervais's favourite - focused on Tap's disastrous US tour, and the band still brand DiBergi's treatment as "a hatchet job".

From BBC • Sep. 11, 2025

“It’s below me to even dignify this hatchet job with a response.”

From New York Times • Nov. 20, 2022

That was quite the hatchet job Matt Brennan did on Ellen DeGeneres.

From Los Angeles Times • May 27, 2022

Roth then flirted with the notion of appointing writer and publisher James Atlas for the project but veered away when he read what he considered to be Atlas’s hatchet job on Saul Bellow.

From Washington Post • Apr. 5, 2021

He subsequently published the story after deciding that Jefferson had failed to pay him adequately for his hatchet job on Adams.

From "Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation" by Joseph J. Ellis