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cut someone's throat
cut one another's throats . Engage in destructive competition. For example, With their price war the two stores were cutting each other's throats . This usage gave rise, by 1880, to the idiom cutthroat competition , for vicious competitive practices.
Be the means of someone's ruin, as in Joe would cut her throat if she got in his way . One can also cut one's own throat , that is, spoil one's own chances, as in Alice cut her own throat by her repeated absences . This hyperbolic term alludes to actual murder (or suicide). [c. 1500]
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[tawr-choo-uhs ]
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