feeding frenzy

feeding frenzy

1. A group attack on prey by predatory animals. All the children enjoy going to the aquarium to watch the feeding frenzy that occurs when the sharks are given food by the staff.
2. An intense competition by a group of people striving to get the same thing. The media feeding frenzy that occurred when the actress slipped and fell on the red carpet was an embarrassment for journalists everywhere.
See also: feed, frenzy
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

feeding frenzy

 
1. Lit. [of sharks] a vicious, competitive feeding attack on prey animals. One of the sharks was fatally bitten during a feeding frenzy amongst his own kind.
2. Fig. a vicious attack on someone or something. It wasn't an office argument, it was a feeding frenzy led by the head accountant!
See also: feed, frenzy
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

a feeding frenzy

COMMON A feeding frenzy is a situation in which a lot of people become very excited about an event and try to get as much information about it or get as much advantage from it as they can, often in an unpleasant way. What the couple hadn't expected in their relationship was the feeding frenzy of publicity that has followed their every move. The discovery caused a feeding frenzy among biologists, whose eyes lit up with visions of the Nobel Prizes to be had for claiming and naming new species. Note: This expression was first used to describe the behaviour of groups of sharks when there is blood in the water but not enough food for them all. In this situation the sharks will attack anything that they see, even each other.
See also: feed, frenzy
Collins COBUILD Idioms Dictionary, 3rd ed.

feeding frenzy

an episode of frantic competition or rivalry for something.
The term originally denoted literally an aggressive and competitive group attack on prey by a number of sharks or piranhas.
2000 Larry King Live (CNN) Haven't we learned today the way this story has unfolded…to guess that this was yet another successful Republican attempt to manipulate the political process and generate a media feeding frenzy which the media has again fallen for?
See also: feed, frenzy
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

a ˈfeeding frenzy

(especially American English) a period of time during which somebody/something eats, spends, etc. a lot in a way that does not seem to be controlled: The news about their marriage started a media feeding frenzy, with all the newspapers trying to get photos and interviews.
A feeding frenzy is an occasion when a group of sharks or other fish attack and eat something.
See also: feed, frenzy
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary

feeding frenzy

Excited activity, usually around some focal point. The term alludes to the intense, excited feeding by sharks and other predators attracted to prey. Its figurative use dates from the late 1900s. It often has been used for the flocking of media around an event of great interest to the public, such as a notorious murder trial.
See also: feed, frenzy
The Dictionary of Clichés by Christine Ammer
See also:
  • a feeding frenzy
  • frenzy
  • swim with sharks
  • prey (up)on (someone or something)
  • prey on
  • on the scent
  • on the scent (of something)
  • easy prey
  • watch (someone or something) like a hawk
  • watch somebody/something like a hawk
References in periodicals archive
"The Funding Feeding Frenzy presents tremendous opportunities, both for entrepreneurs and investors," said Bob Bock, one of the event's organizers.
Investors & Entrepreneurs Descend on Chicago for Funding Feeding Frenzy Event September 21, 2017
Caption(s): The feeding frenzy of TV celebrities at the show included Art Smith at All-Clad / Steven Raichlen at The Companion Group / Ron Popeil at Ronco and / Rocco DiSpirito at Manttra
TOO MANY COOKS IN THE KITCHEN?
In its speeded-up repetitions and regurgitations of past styles and tastes, in its self-conscious vamping (think even of the names--faux debutante, in the case of dealer Patti Astor, and mercantile spoof over on Fifth Street at C.A.S.H.), this high/low feeding frenzy brought subcultural hybrids (the stylized criminality of graffiti, the samplings of scratch, the posing of drag) into league with the pop cannibalizations of a Richard Prince or the artful appropriations of a Sherrie Levine on the post-Warholian mainframe.
"East Village USA": New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York
Bankruptcy is intended to prevent a feeding frenzy by creditors, maximize value of bankrupt debtors' limited assets and ensure that creditors' claims are paid in an orderly and fair manner.
Continuing the battle: quantity of claims, not underlying merit, has become a driving force in asbestos bankruptcies
While everyone else concentrated on the feeding frenzy in the lagoon, my eye was drawn to this spoonbill soaring past me, and for a single moment, we connected, eye-to-eye, through the camera lens.
Pretty in pink: soaring with Florida's roseate spoonbills
Matt Field's varial kickflip took place within the first month of the spot feeding frenzy. Mak MeNair
Of where do you remember me from?
Each herbivore entrapment probably triggered a feeding frenzy that resulted in up to a dozen predators being trapped as well, says Van Valkenburgh.
L.A.'s oldest tourist trap: at Rancho La Brea, death has been the pits for millennia
Vendors of every ilk are doing all they can to encourage this propitious feeding frenzy. But who should take the credit for bringing D2D2T to the masses?
Backup and recovery is not dead
Wyland, best known for his aquatic paintings of creatures living under the sea, had been commissioned by Womack to create a large-scale painting of humpback whales for $128,000, ironically titled "Feeding Frenzy." (Wyland was stiffed out of half the cost by Womack.) Since Womack's arrest in 1999, it was decided that the ownership of Wyland's painting would be split among Wyland and the victims and then sold.
More than 400 investors who fell prey to con artist Jerry Womack's schemes a few years ago are now trying to recoup some of their losses through a Wyland painting
After all, the NASDAQ is a wonderful stock exchange, but is it so terribly wonderful that corporate decision makers, with an eye now to their personal liability in balance sheet matters, would never consider alternative venues, especially without some type of corresponding tort reform to prevent the trial lawyers from engaging in a feeding frenzy? Executives now talk of being inundated by 800-question government surveys tied to relatively routine decisions.
Kicking Dubya when he's up. Why it's time now to "do windows." (From The Founder)
After a feeding frenzy, all the flavors we tasted were given a four-star rating and there was a rush to find a Safeway store nearby to replenish the supply.
Putman's Great Escape. (Rollout)
Although the world's most effective predator, man, slaughters more than 100 million sharks each year, it was the seemingly sharp increase in shark reprisals during the summer of 2001 that set off a media feeding frenzy (see "Who's the Real Killer," Currents, November/December 1995).
WHO'S THE REAL MONSTER OF THE DEEP?
The result: The widely predicted feeding frenzy of business and other interest groups seeking to include their special provisions in the tax bill didn't happen.
Check's in the Mail
If you missed its first appearance, Survivor--the game show version of Lord of the Flies--relied on a mixture of greed and ambition to transform the cast of Gilligan's Island or Swiss Family Robinson into a gang of sharks on a feeding frenzy. Imagine Family Feud being played by the Medicis, or musical chairs among members of the politburo, and you get the general idea.
No man is an island
Now Sony is scrambling to produce 100,000 each week before Christmas, claiming the shortage is legit and not a marketing ploy to create a Tickle-Me-Elmo-style feeding frenzy for the holidays.
PlayStation 2: Game Over?