to drive a stake through its heart
- idiom
- Informal
:
dar el golpe final
- The company hopes this product will drive a stake through its heart and end the competition.
Examples
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Let's drive a stake through its heart!
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The new law will finally drive a stake through its heart and stop the illegal practice.
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With that powerful argument, she managed to drive a stake through its heart.
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We need to drive a stake through its heart to end this debate.
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The committee decided it was time to drive a stake through its heart and officially end the failing project.
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To solve the ongoing issues, the manager suggested they drive a stake through its heart by discontinuing the ineffective strategy.
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After much debate, the team agreed that to move forward, they needed to drive a stake through its heart and abandon the outdated policy.
Synonyms
682
2.8
Stop something from working or continuing
60
6.9
To destroy something completely, often on purpose
21
5.5
End something completely, for example a custom or a debt
13
5.1
To destroy or ruin something suddenly and completely
13
4.2
To stop something completely using strong action
9
7.7
Put an end to something or to someone's life
Stop something by using force or strict rules
To suddenly end someone's job or a relationship, often without warning
Antonyms
How Final
- Informal
44
4.8
∞
1.0
72
6.3
270
6.8
305
2.8
Surface Forms
Morphology
drive + a + stake + through + its + heart
The literal image of 'driving a stake through its heart' clearly conveys killing or destroying something utterly, so a learner who knows the constituent words can plausibly infer a metaphorical meaning of eliminating or ending something decisively. However, understanding the conventionalized metaphor depends on cultural knowledge (e.g. the vampire/stake trope) and involves a figurative extension, so the meaning is not fully predictable for an average B1 learner without prior exposure.
Etymology
Drive a stake through its heart may come from old stories about vampires and monsters. People would drive a wooden stake through the creature's heart to kill it, so the phrase means 'to end something completely'.