strip away

strip away

1. To tear, peel, or otherwise remove some outer layer or covering from something else, especially in a quick, intense, or violent manner. A noun or pronoun can be used between "strip" and "away." Quit stripping the bark away from the tree like that—it isn't good for it! This treatment strips away the dirt and dead cells from your skin. The doctors stripped the bandage away to check the wound.
2. To remove aspect, trait, ability, power, etc., from someone or something. A noun or pronoun can be used between "strip" and "away." The authoritarian government has been slowly stripping away its citizens' freedoms ever since it came into power. The board of directors stripped the manager's authority away while it conducted its internal review of the situation.
See also: away, strip
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

strip something away (from someone or something)

to remove or peel something from someone or something. The emergency room nurse stripped the clothing away from the burn victim. He stripped away the victim's clothing. Jamie stripped away the old paint from the bathroom wall.
See also: away, strip
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.

strip away

v.
1. To remove some covering or layer: Most bullies are really cowards once you strip away their tough fa?ade. We hated the wood paneling on the walls so much that we stripped it away and painted the whole room.
2. To take some rights or privileges away: The state strips away felons' right to vote. I had power of attorney over the property until the court stripped it away.
See also: away, strip
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • involve with
  • involve with (someone or something)
  • involved with
  • back into
  • back into (someone or something)
  • add in
  • angle
  • angling
  • not do (someone or oneself) any favors
  • arrange some music for
References in periodicals archive
"We need to get back to the essence of successful teaching - strip away the workload that doesn't add value and give teachers the time and the space to focus on what actually matters."
Minister to pledge to cut pressures on teachers
Strip away the urban angst of Public Enemy & Co, and relive 14 Stax standards the way they originally sounded.
VARIOUS ARTISTS The Soul Of Hip-Hop
Strip away the clothes and make-up, and she's just like millions of other mums doing their best to keep their kids happy.
Letter: Your Say - OLD? SELINA'S ONLY A BABE
But strip away the hype, and the Tories are simply speaking common sense.
BIRMINGHAM POST: Fat and free
THEY 'over-intellectualise' music according to old clever clogs himself Noel Gallagher, but strip away the posturing and Bloc Party's songs more than stand up to scrutiny.
live reviews: Bloc Party, Carling Academy Glasgow, April 14 ****; video and dvd reviews
We are outing the people who have signed up to strip away our rights, but we are also outing ourselves.
Know thy neighbors
The quote by Romeo Dallaire in the Adrienne Clarkson article, entitled Ex-vice regal "at home' in communion, also made an impact: "We are all human beings and no human being is more human than any other." And so we strip away our self-deceptions and the wails we build around ourselves.
Powerful image
states the authority to regulate insurance, but it also would strip away their rate-setting authority.
A new world order: U.S. and European insurers debate demands of converging regulations
These same hits would strip away the Stryker's "birdcage" and expose its thin hull to catastrophic destruction by follow-on RPG strikes.
Stryker woes in Iraq: American military officers are far from satisfied with the tactical performance of their Stryker armoured vehicles. The following passage by R. Liebert was recently circulated through an online U.S. Army discussion group
They've managed to strip away the most confining elements of progressive hardcore and refreshed the sound with vocal inflections, thump-ier beats and even some white-noise exploration.
These arms are snakes
The principal Enlightenment thinkers--Hume, Adam Smith, and Kant--believed that if one could strip away tradition and superstition, it would be possible to formulate a set of moral principles that would compel assent by reason alone.
Our lost morality
He wants to strip away the labels with which we have become comfortable and shift the spotlight away from the iconic figures of black thought and activism.
Black Identity and Black Protest in the Antebellum North. (Reviews)
It is an essential weapon being used to strip away America's economic, scientific, and technological leadership; render us dependent on foreign sources of energy and basic resources; and drastically reduce our productivity and standard of living to a "world" level that will enable our "integration and convergence" into a world government.
Why the race to the bottom? Why does America's elite support policies that export jobs and technology, import foreign workers, erode national sovereignty, and destroy our standard of living? (Cover Story: Business)
What they do is strip away that comfort and dignity we had as free Americans.
Indefinite detention and other tales from the new America. (Human Rights Watch)