run into the ground

1. Pursue a topic until it has been thoroughly discussed or exhausted, as in They've run the abortion issue into the ground .

2. Ruin or destroy, as in During her brief time as chief executive Marjorie just about ran the company into the ground . Both usages allude to pushing something so far that it is, in effect, buried. [Early 1800s]

Example Sentences

“The easiest thing would have been for Robert to plow on until he truly pegged out and by which time the estate probably would have been run into the ground or mismanaged,” Bonneville says.

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A team that was being run into the ground by a superstar and his agent just regained control of its identity again.

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Former Arsenal and France forward Thierry Henry and ex-Liverpool and England defender Jamie Carragher have expressed the view, external that modern-day players are being "being treated like cattle" and "run into the ground".

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It’s a winning start, and likely means that the only company being run into the ground is the fictional one at the heart of the Ladder.

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But as the Framers could have warned you, a nation that was dreamed up chiefly by lawyers was almost overdetermined to be run into the ground by them one day.

Read more on Slate

Related Words

• exaggerate 
• overestimate 
• overplay 
• overrate 
• overreach 
• overstate 
• overuse 
• overvalue