hatchet job

noun

: a forceful or malicious verbal attack

Example Sentences

Recent Examples on the Web

In other words, the book is not a hatchet job. —John Tamny, Forbes, 27 May 2021

Trump supporters say the potential prosecution is a politically motivated hatchet job disconnected from the law. —Joseph Morton, Dallas News, 22 Mar. 2023

Rumor has it that someone is writing a book about her life, which will be a hatchet job. —Lincee Ray, EW.com, 9 Nov. 2022

Rick Reilly’s hatchet job in Sports Illustrated, painting Bo as a coward, was merely the most infamous and casually vicious of the genre. —al, 27 Oct. 2022

That was quite the hatchet job Matt Brennan did on Ellen DeGeneres. —Los Angeles Times, 27 May 2022

And yet, having said all that, the Grassley report has the appearance of a partisan hatchet job on a nomination by a Democratic president. —Steve Lopezcolumnist, Los Angeles Times, 10 May 2022

His surrogates have painted James’s report as a partisan hatchet job. —Washington Post, 1 Mar. 2022

That none of this is generally acknowledged is due to a posthumous series of smears by left-wing journalists and historians, which started with a hatchet job in The New Republic. —Kyle Smith, National Review, 27 Mar. 2021

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Word History

First Known Use

1940, in the meaning defined above