eat someone's lunch

Verb

eat someone's lunch (third-person singular simple present eats someone's lunch, present participle eating someone's lunch, simple past ate someone's lunch, past participle eaten someone's lunch)

1. (US, idiomatic, slang) To best or defeat someone thoroughly; to make short work of.
   • So in a classic it-ain't-broke-so-let's-fix-it-anyway move, some of our managers and salespeople began complaining that it wasn't written for Windows. […] If we didn't rewrite for Windows, they insisted, our competitors would eat our lunch!2006 October 2, “A Disastrous ‘Upgrade’: My Boss Insisted that Creating a Windows Version of Our DOS App would Ensure Our Future”, in Steve Fox, editor, InfoWorld, volume 28, number 40, San...
   • "I would also suggest to my free enterprise colleagues—especially conservatives here—whether you think it's all a bunch of hooey [i.e., climate change], what we've talked about in this committee, the Chinese don’t," the South Carolina Republican [Bob Inglis] said in his opening remarks. "And they...2010 November 18, Kate Sheppard, “Outgoing GOPer Slams Climate Denying Colleagues”, in Mother Jones, San Francisco, Calif.: Foundation for National Progress, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original...

   Synonyms:

   eat someone for breakfast, have someone for breakfast, beat, bring down, convince, chew up, flog, humble, kick ass, malavogue