take a shellacking

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

Stewart’s approach unnerves Republicans who haven’t won a statewide race since 2009 and watched their party take a shellacking at the polls in 2017, in a massive backlash to President Trump.

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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.

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Let me be granite and I promise I’ll show you how to take a shellacking.

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

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Despite Peking's eagerness to see India take a shellacking, the war hardly fits China's devoutly held Leninist belief in an inevitable clash between Com munism and the "capitalist-imperialist" West.

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