slash-and-burn
1. Relating to an agricultural tactic in which forest or other vegetation cut down to the ground and burned, the land planted and cultivated with crops for a few years, then abandoned to allow the forest grow back. The slash-and-burn practice has become ever more frequent in this region, but with less and less areas being allowed to regrow the forests each year, there are concerns that the damage may become irreparable.
2. By extension, extremely and drastically destructive. Several of the country's biggest corporations have had to undergo slash-and-burn dismantlings of many of their offices in efforts to salvage their businesses.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
slash and burn
1. Lit. of a farming technique where vegetation is cut down and burned before crops are planted. (Hyphenated before nominals.) The small farmers' slash-and-burn technique destroyed thousands of acres of forest.
2. Fig. of a crude and brash way of doing something. (Hyphenated before nominals.) The new manager's method was strictly slash and burn. He looks decisive to his boss and merciless to the people he fires.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.