body blow

• body-blow

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body blow (plural body blows)

1. (boxing) A hard punch struck to the torso.
   • 1896, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter 11, in Rodney Stone:

     He led at Berks's head, as he came rushing in, and missed him, receiving a severe body blow in return.

2. (idiomatic, by extension) A serious setback; a traumatizing event which prevents or hinders continuation of an activity.
   • 1910, Stewart Edward White, chapter 43, in The Rules of the Game:

     "I can hardly exaggerate the body blow to the Service such a decision would give. Nobody will believe in it again."

   • 1955 Sep. 5, "Medicine: Cutter Verdict," Time (retrieved 7 April 2014):

     The polio vaccination program took a body blow last spring when the disease developed in children injected with vaccine from the Cutter Laboratories of Berkeley, Calif.

   • 2009 March 21, Mark Mazzetti, "The Downside of Letting Robots Do the Bombing," New York Times (retrieved 7 April 2014):

     [D]rone strikes . . . have delivered body blows to Al Qaeda's leadership in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan without risking a single American soldier on the ground.

• kidney punch

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