strike someone when they are down
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English
[edit]Verb
[edit]strike someone when they are down (third-person singular simple present strikes someone when they are down, present participle striking someone when they are down, simple past and past participle struck someone when they were down)
- (idiomatic) Synonym of kick someone when they are down (“make things worse for someone in a difficult position”) [from 17th c.]
- 1665, John Sergeant, Sure Footing in Christianity, or rational discourses on the rule of faith[1]:
- but he was already so doubly overthrown by two Learned Opposers, that it seem'd unhandsome and ignoble to strike a man when he was down; his Circumstances making him rather an Object of Pity than Victory.