cut to the quick

present singular third person cuts to the quick · participle present cutting to the quick

1. figurativelytransitiveTo hurt a person deeply, especially emotionally.

   I was cut to the quick at the idea of having lost the inestimable privilege of listening to the gifted Kurtz.

   1899 March, Joseph Conrad, “The Heart of Darkness”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CLXV, number MI, New York, N.Y.: The Leonard Scott Publishing Company, […], →OCLC, part II

   1 more example

   But you must remember that we were boys together, and a fellow naturally confides in a chap he was boys together with. Anyway, be that as it may, he poured out his soul to me, and he hadn't been pouring long before I was able to see that he was cut to the quick. His blood pressure was high, his eye rolled in what they call a fine frenzy, and he was death-where-is-thy-sting-ing like nobody's business.

   1960, P. G. Wodehouse, Jeeves in the Offing, chapter XI

2. figurativelyTo incisively discuss the underlying sensitive or unpleasant root of a given topic.

   Alfar's analysis cuts to the quick of the socioeconomic structures that underlie marriage, primogeniture, monarchy, and imperialism.

   2005, Cristina Malcolmson, “Review of Fantasies of Female Evil: The Dynamics of Gender and Power in Shakespearean Tragedy by Cristina Alfar”, in Shakespeare Quarterly, volume 56, number 1, page 112

3. Used other than figuratively or idiomatically: see cut, quick.