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“Cut to the quick” is an idiom that can refer to emotional pain or getting to the root of a problem. It is compared to cutting nails too short, exposing sensitive tissue. It can refer to the person causing harm or the person being hurt. It can also refer to addressing the core of a problem.
The phrase “raw cut” is an idiom that can be interpreted a couple of different ways. More often than not, the idiom is used to explain that someone has been seriously injured, usually in an emotional rather than a physical context. Other times, however, “cutting to the quick” means getting to the root or main point of a problem. Either way, the main idea of the idiom is that the outer covering of something has been cut away to get to the inner, important issue, which can be painful when dealing with emotions.
The word “fast” sometimes describes living tissue and is often used to refer to the nail beds of the fingers and toes. When an individual cuts their nails too short, down to the base of the nail bed, it can be very painful because the normal protective coating has been removed. This common occurrence is the physical basis for the metaphor of being emotionally “cut to the quick,” with painful and sensitive emotions suddenly exposed like a nail bed whose protective nail has been cut too short.
This idiom can be used to refer to either the person who does harm or the person who is being hurt. It would be fair to say that an abusive person cut his friend to the quick with a mean comment. It’s also fair to say that the friend was shocked by the mean comment. In this case, the friend’s protective emotional barrier has been cut, to expose the underlying painful feelings. Since the most significant and important feelings are those that have been deeply hurt, the friend who was hurt to the quick is unlikely to recover and forgive the insult anytime soon.
Likewise, getting to the main idea of a problem is also considered to cut to the quick. Even in this definition the outer layer of the unimportant has been cut away to address the core of the matter. For example, one nervous business partner may want to stall out small talk, while the other partner tries to cut into the conversation, brushing aside trivial matters to discuss more important matters. This form of the idiom is used less frequently than the emotional one, although the main idea of both is the same.
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