To pursue a topic which is exhausted; to carry a thing too far.
a. 1826. He [a young Missouri Senator] was asked how low the mercury fell in his locality. He promptly replied, “It run into the ground about a foot.” Hence arose the saying, “running it into the ground.”—Peter H. Burnett, ‘Recollections and Opinions of an Old Pioneer,’ p. 46 (N.Y., 1880).
1851. “Well, you’ve fairly run it into the ground now,” says Uncle Joshua.—Seba Smith (‘Major Downing’), ‘My Thirty Years Out of the Senate,’ p. 340 (1860).
