beat the daylights out of
Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.
Meaning · English
to defeat or punish someone severely
Literally: to hit someone until the daylights are out
Where it’s used:
Used
Widespread English
Examples
You name it, I'll take you on, and what's more I'll take you on, and what's more I'll beat the daylights out of you, into the bargain. "
However, after extensive playtesting it turned out that P2 is as enjoyable as you could hope for … and beats the living daylights out of 90% of all other games in this category.
British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)
Sources & notes
Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-30; pending editor spot-check.
Common questions
What does “beat the daylights out of” mean?
to defeat or punish someone severely Literally: to hit someone until the daylights are out
Is “beat the daylights out of” formal or informal?
No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.