cutthroat

cutthroat competition

Opposition that is especially fierce, relentless, or merciless. These school election breed some cutthroat competition. The students here will do just about anything to win, even if it means ruining each other's reputations. I never could handle the cutthroat competition of investment banking, so I decided to pursue something a bit more easygoing.
See also: competition, cutthroat

cutthroat prices

Extremely low prices (i.e., those that "cut the throats" of competitors by being impossible to beat). They gained a huge foothold in the market by offering decent mid-range smartphones at cutthroat prices.
See also: cutthroat, price
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

cut someone's throat

1. 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]
2. 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.
See also: cut, throat
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • cutthroat competition
  • competition
  • put to the sword
  • be put to the sword
  • cutthroat prices
  • red in tooth and claw
  • make demands of
  • make demands of (one)
  • crawl (all) over each other
  • with the gloves off
References in periodicals archive
The company's prospective resources for Cutthroat are calculated at 7.8 million barrels of oil and 18 billion cubic feet of gas on a gross basis.
In this study, we explored Coastal Cutthroat Trout abundance, growth, and movement responses to an extreme drought event during summer in a headwater ecosystem in the Cascade Range of western Oregon.
12 February 2013 - US telecommunications solutions provider Blackfoot Telecommunications Group said it had finalised the acquisition of Fremont Telcom Company and Fretel Communications LLC from FairPoint Communications Inc (NASDAQ:FRP), as well as the takeover of Cutthroat Communications Inc.
A recent study in a small lentic ecosystem (9) found that the rainbow trout had an average relative condition factor of 72.5% ([+ or -] 2.1%), while the cutthroat trout had an average of 101.0% ([+ or -] 4.9%).
Staff biologists testified cutthroat populations are healthy and stable coastwide.
She discovered that the restocked fish raised in hatcheries (facility that breeds fish) were actually Colorado River cutthroat trout.
Jay Bigelow holds a male Lahontan cutthroat trout (Oncorhynchus clarki henshawi), one about three years old and 16 inches (40 centimeters) long, and admires the sunlight reflecting off the black-spotted silvery-white flanks.
THE UPPER reach of Montana's Wasson Creek is home to a purestrain population of westslope cutthroat trout.
The fly lands gracefully at the head of a pool and moments later a large Yellowstone cutthroat sucks it down.
IT'S HARD to believe that Renny Harlin has been allowed out again after Cutthroat Island, Exorcist: The Beginning and Deep Blue Sea, but here he goes again with a weak 97-minute thriller aimed at the Buffy crowd.
Featuring eight bonus stickers to liven up anyone's cubicle, Try Rebooting Yourself is cartoonist Scott Adams' latest compilation of Dilbert cartoons, which savagely mock and jeer corporate ineffectualness, human obnoxiousness, and the literally cutthroat (or shove-off-a-roof) competition of office politics.
An internationally recognized business planning expert, Professor Hazelgren draws upon his impressive expertise in Tactical Entrepreneur: The Entrepreneur's Game Plan to show aspiring entrepreneurs how to survive and prosper in the cutthroat world of business ownership.
Million Dollar Listing A six-episode original series chronicling the high-stakes, cutthroat real estate world in Los Angeles.
The knife amnesty ends at midnight on Friday and the eight cutthroat razors form an intriguing addition to the sinister haul of blades surrendered over the last few days.
Is this a case of cutthroat competition diminishing demand, or a faulty roll-out that saw the G6 Coupe enter the market well after the sedan and with the convertible just coming into view, or buyer resistance as they try to fathom GM's various pricing schemes?