tar and feather

Idioms  

1. Criticize severely, punish, as in The traditionalists often want to tar and feather those who don't conform. This expression alludes to a former brutal punishment in which a person was smeared with tar and covered with feathers, which then stuck. It was first used as a punishment for theft in the English navy, recorded in the Ordinance of Richard I in 1189, and by the mid-1700s had become mob practice. The figurative usage dates from the mid-1800s.

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Example Sentences

They wrote that the $125 million he is seeking represents not just $15 million remaining from his CNN contract but also future “decades of earnings” that they argue he has been deprived of because “CNN’s calculated efforts to tar and feather him” left him “untouchable in the world of broadcast journalism.”

From Washington Post

But, he added, “I don’t know if we need to tar and feather him every day from now until the end of the pandemic for this.”

From Seattle Times

There is a slang term that has been used to describe the practice of using the occasional extremist to tar and feather an entire group: "nutpicking."

From Salon

“We don’t tar and feather him, do anything he doesn’t like,” Fitch said.

From Reuters

The attorney, E Dirk Wegmann, told the special master that the plaintiffs only want the Saints emails released so they can give them to the media and “unfairly try to tar and feather the archdiocese”.

From The Guardian