The fight is not all one-sided. Lion is taking a savage beating as the two flagships trade body blows almost independent of the furious carronade going on behind them.

There are numerous near misses and various secondary-battery shells flying and setting small fires and causing shrapnel damage to both ships... but these are somewhat irrelevant compared to the body blows that they're dishing out to each other at the moment.

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

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

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.

And the government received a psychological body-blow with the crushing defeat of the Blakeney government in neighboring Saskatchewan.

[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.

Body blow

Meaning

Noun

Synonyms