Citations:twist the knife

English citations of twist the knife

Verb: "to deliberately do or say something to worsen a difficult situation or increase a person's distress, irritation, or anger"

							2006 2009 2010
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• 2006 — Laura Kipnis, The Female Thing: Dirt, Envy, Sex, Vulnerability, Serpent's Tail (2007), →ISBN, page 31:

  This is being presented as the brave new thing, with words like "choice" lobbed around just to twist the knife a little deeper for cranky old feminists, who used the word differently.

• 2009 — Lucy Dillon, Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts, Berkley (2011), →ISBN, page 198:

  "And I'm not seeing anyone," she added, just to twist the knife — in whom, she wasn't sure.

• 2010 — Eric L. Haney, No Man's Land, Berkley (2010), →ISBN, page 122:

  Terry took a pull on his cigar, "If it were purely political, they would have sent pieces of the boy to his grandfather; just to twist the knife, so to speak."