1. Home
2. Idioms
3. hamburger

hamburger

---

---

make mincemeat (out) of someone

 and make hamburger (out) of someone

Fig. to beat or pound someone or something; to treat someone or something roughly. (As if chopping someone up.) If you don't behave, I'll make mincemeat out of you. Do you want Fred to make hamburger out of you?

See also: make, mincemeat, of

make mincemeat (out) of somebody/something

to destroy or defeat someone or something completely A good lawyer would have made mincemeat of them in court.

Etymology: from the literal meaning of mincemeat (a food in which different things are cut up into very small pieces)

See also: make, mincemeat, of

make mincemeat of somebody

  (informal)

to defeat someone very easily A good lawyer would have made mincemeat of them in court.

See also: make, mincemeat, of

make mincemeat of

Also, make hamburger of. Thrash, beat decisively, as in That bully will make mincemeat of my son, or The other team will make hamburger out of us. This idiom alludes to finely chopping up meat. The first term dates from about 1700, the variant from the first half of the 1900s.

See also: make, mincemeat, of

hamburger

n. a stupid and worthless person—meat. The guy is just hamburger. You can’t teach him anything.

hamburgers

n. shares in the McDonald’s corporation. (Securities markets. New York Stock Exchange jargon.) I want 400 shares of hamburgers.

See also: hamburger

make hamburger out of someone/something

and make mincemeat out of someone/something

tv. to beat someone or something to a pulp; to destroy someone or something. The puppy made mincemeat out of my paper. Say that again and I’ll make hamburger out of you!

See also: hamburger, make, of, out

make mincemeat of

Slang

To destroy utterly: made mincemeat of the opponent's argument.

See also: make, mincemeat, of