eat someone alive

Verb

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

1. To consume a prey animal that is still alive, as many predators do.
   • "This's nuts," his father said, but he spoke hollowly, with no strength. "If you go wandering around out there, you'll be eaten alive."
     "No more than the coyote ate me alive when I got out of the cell," David said. "The danger isn't if I go out there; it's if we all stay in here."1996, Stephen King, Desperation
   1. (informal) To bite repeatedly.
      • You may find that in June it rains so hard the streets are filled with a foot of mud and the mosquitoes eat people alive, but in October the place is beautiful.1992 February, Mark Jenkins, “Beyond the Border: A Primer for Backpacking Abroad”, in Backpacker
      • “Let's go into the house before these mosquitoes eat us alive.”1996, Sandra Steffen, Not Before Marriage!, Silhouette Books, published 1996, →ISBN
2. (informal) To overwhelm or consume someone.
   • She shook her head wearily, the guilt eating her alive.2006, Lora Leigh, Megan's Mark, Berkley Sensation, published 2006, →ISBN
   • Eventually, Randy moved through the shock and began to see that anger was eating him alive and poisoning his life.2007, Lynn Anderson, They Smell Like Sheep, Volume 2: Leading with the Heart of a Shepherd, Howard Books, published 2007, →ISBN, page 169
3. (informal) To criticize harshly or rebuke strongly.
   • However, the album never even made it onto the record charts, and the critics ate her alive.2001, Mark Bego, Cher: If You Believe, Taylor Trade Publishing, published 2004, →ISBN, page 141
   • 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."2010 October 10, Evelyn McDonnell, “Book Review: 'Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution' by Sara Marcus”, in Los Angeles Times

   Synonyms:

   criticize