beat the daylights out of

beat the daylights out of verb: to beat (someone) severely.

Verb

beat the daylights out of (third-person singular simple present beats the daylights out of, present participle beating the daylights out of, simple past beat the daylights out of, past participle beaten the daylights out of or beat the daylights out of)

(idiomatic, transitive) To beat (someone) severely.
- Punching fast and furiously, I would beat the daylights out of them until they were bloody all over.1993, Lester Sumrall, The Life Story of Lester Sumrall, →ISBN
Synonyms:

clobber
(idiomatic, transitive) To defeat (someone) thoroughly and decisively, especially in a physical fight.
- The guy beat the daylights out of me, and I made a dollar. My wrestling license cost five dollars.2007, Greg Oliver, The Pro Wrestling Hall of Fame: The Heels, →ISBN, page 42

third-person singular present	beats the daylights out of
present participle	beating the daylights out of
past	beat the daylights out of
past participle	beaten the daylights out of
past participle	beat the daylights out of
alternative form	beat the daylight out of

What does beat the daylights out of mean?: Beat the daylights out of means to beat (someone) severely.
What part of speech is beat the daylights out of?: Beat the daylights out of is a verb.
What is the past tense of beat the daylights out of?: The past tense of beat the daylights out of is beat the daylights out of.

Adapted from Wiktionary: beat the daylights out of (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-beat the daylights out of.ogg.

Cite this entry: “beat the daylights out of.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/beat_the_daylights_out_of. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.