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Synonyms

skin alive

Idioms  

  1. Punish severely, as in If I find the guy who slashed my tire I'll skin him alive. This hyperbolic expression transfers the barbaric practice of flaying a live prisoner to other forms of punishment. [Colloquial mid-1800s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

I give thee, Bird, advice; If thou wouldst save thy skin alive, Let me not warn thee twice, "Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack— Go on and ne'er look back!"

From Project Gutenberg

And again he was reported to have, with unrelenting temper, represented to his friends in secret council, that, “It was for our safety not to spare one white skin alive.”

From Project Gutenberg

Better fight dan be skin alive!”

From Project Gutenberg

I will permit not that you risk to be skin alive.

From Project Gutenberg

It was difficult to trace what it was; something all in a heap, brown naked skin; alive, as might be known by the heaving breathing.

From Project Gutenberg

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.