beat hollow

English

Alternative forms

• beat all hollow

Verb

beat hollow

1. (transitive) To beat up (a person) severely.
2. (transitive, figurative) To defeat severely.
   • 1845, Edgar Allan Poe, edited by Thomas Ollive Mabbott, Complete Poems, University of Illinois Press, published 2000, page 351:

     "The Raven" has had a great run ... but I wrote it for the express purpose of running — just as I did "The Gold-Bug" ... the bird beat the bug, though, all hollow.

   • 1881, Charles Darwin, “letter”, in Darwin Correspondence Database‎^[1], retrieved 2013-07-07:

     The more civilized so-called Caucasian races have beaten the Turks hollow in the struggle for existence.

   • 1915, John Buchan, The Thirty-Nine Steps, William Blackwood & Sons, page 9:

     […] and every night we had a game of chess, at which he beat me hollow.

Synonyms

• beat to a pulp