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take a shellacking

Idioms  

  1. Be soundly beaten or defeated, as in Our team took quite a shellacking last night. Why being coated with shellac should suggest defeat is not clear. [Slang; c. 1930]

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.

And when Amazon snapped up Whole Foods in June, investors dumped the stocks of supermarket companies, certain they’d take a shellacking from their new competitor.

From Seattle Times

It was certainly true that the Democrats were poised to take a shellacking in the coming elections.

From Time

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.