eat someone alive

Definitions

1. 1

   To consume a prey animal that is still alive, as many predators do.

2. 2

   To overwhelm or consume someone.

   • She shook her head wearily, the guilt eating her alive.
   • Eventually, Randy moved through the shock and began to see that anger was eating him alive and poisoning his life.
   • "How's Abby holding up?" "She almost isn't." Keith sounded exhausted. "The guilt's eating her alive. […]
3. 3

   To criticize harshly or rebuke strongly.

   • However, the album never even made it onto the record charts, and the critics ate her alive.
   • The media ate them alive. Sympathetic coverage, like Emily White's 1992 L.A. Weekly cover story, devolved into patronizing, parasitic parodies of "pink, frilly bedrooms."
   • For nearly the entire full four years of Frank's administration, the local media ate him alive for even the slightest misstep.

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