cutting to the quick

Verb

cut to the quick (third-person singular simple present cuts to the quick, present participle cutting to the quick, simple past and past participle cut to the quick)

1. (figuratively, transitive) To hurt a person deeply, especially emotionally.
   • I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz.1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part II
2. (figuratively) To incisively discuss the underlying sensitive or unpleasant root of a given topic.
   • Alfar's analysis cuts to the quick of the socioeconomic structures that underlie marriage, primogeniture, monarchy, and imperialism.2005, Cristina Malcolmson, “Review of Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy by Cristina Alfar”, in Shakespeare Quarterly, volume 56, number 1, page 112
3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, quick.