Word Pronunciation & Dictionary

eat someone's lunch

/ˈit ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈlʌnt͡ʃ/

Word Rarity Uncommon

Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.11 in modern English

Syllables: eat -some-one's lunch
IPA: /ˈit ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈlʌnt͡ʃ/

23

Scrabble Score

16

Letters

3

Syllables

11

Unique Chars

Meaning

verb

To best or defeat someone thoroughly; to make short work of.

American usage; Slang

Example Sentences

"So in a classic it-ain't-broke-so-let's-fix-it-anyway move, some of our managers and salespeople began complaining that it wasn't written for Windows. […] If we didn't rewrite for Windows, they insisted, our competitors would eat our lunch!"
""I would also suggest to my free enterprise colleagues—especially conservatives here—whether you think it's all a bunch of hooey [i.e., climate change], what we've talked about in this committee, the Chinese don’t," the South Carolina Republican [Bob Inglis] said in his opening remarks. "And they plan on eating our lunch in this next century.""
"It seemed inevitable: Slither was going to eat our lunch unless we upped our game and out-Slithered Slither. But here's the thing, The Slither Corporation doesn't actually exist. It's our fictive nemesis, our imaginary bad guys. Rather than battling a poorly performing company, we went up against our worst enemy—the company that we knew could put us out of business (if it really existed)."
"Today, thanks in large part to [Elon] Musk's pace-setting, auto companies from VW to Nissan are jostling to invest billions in electric vehicles. Their about-face is driven less by altruism than by a dawning realization that Musk is eating their lunch."
"Platforms such as TikTok and Instagram are, indeed, eating traditional comedy’s lunch lately when it comes to funny characters."

Etymology

Possibly from the idea of a stronger or quicker person snatching away and eating another person’s lunch before they can consume it.

Regional Pronunciation

American English: /ˈit ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈlʌnt͡ʃ/
British English: /ˈiːt ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈlʌnt͡ʃ/

Usage

American usage
Slang

Inflected Forms

eats someone's lunch (present, singular) eating someone's lunch (participle, present) ate someone's lunch (past) eaten someone's lunch (participle, past)

Synonyms

eat someone for breakfast have someone for breakfast beat bring down convince chew up eat someone's lunch flog humble kick ass malavogue murdelize

Rhymes With

lunch bunch punch crunch brunch munch hunch scrunch dunch trunch wunch cunch

Questions

How do you pronounce eat someone's lunch?: The recorded pronunciation is /ˈit ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈlʌnt͡ʃ/.
What does eat someone's lunch mean?: To best or defeat someone thoroughly; to make short work of.
Where does eat someone's lunch come from?: Possibly from the idea of a stronger or quicker person snatching away and eating another person’s lunch before they can consume it.

How to pronounce eat someone's lunch

Open the pronunciation page — Open the Speakur entry for “eat someone's lunch”.
Read the phonetic spelling — Read the IPA spelling (/ˈit ˌsʌmwʌnz ˈlʌnt͡ʃ/) so you know which sounds to aim for.
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