一棍子打死

1. • to deal a single fatal blow
2. • to totally repudiate sb because of a minor error

     fig.

Character by character

• 一(yī)one
• 棍(gùn)stick
• 子(zi)noun suffix, as in 椅子 yǐzi "chair"
• 打(dǎ)a semantically light, transitive verb that is combined with various grammatical objects to form compound verbs and verb-object phrases with a diverse range of meanings
• 死(sǐ)die