Word.ws English Dictionary

beat the pants off

beat the pants off verb: to thoroughly and decisively defeat someone, either in a physical fight or, figuratively, in a competition.

Verb

beat the pants off (third-person singular simple present beats the pants off, present participle beating the pants off, simple past beat the pants off, past participle beaten the pants off or beat the pants off)

  1. (idiomatic, transitive) To thoroughly and decisively defeat someone, either in a physical fight or, figuratively, in a competition.
    • American workers can outcompete and beat the pants off anybody, anywhere.1987 September 6, Bernard Weinraub, “Reagan Tells Congress to Shun Protectionism”, in New York Times, retrieved 16 Aug 2012
    • Jeffrey Vinik, manager of the $56 billion Fidelity Magellan Fund, the world's largest and most closely watched mutual fund, "beat the pants off the managers of other large funds," in the words of one analyst.1996 June 3, John Greenwald et al., “Magellan's New Direction”, in Time
    Synonyms:
    clobber

Synonyms of beat the pants off

Forms of beat the pants off

third-person singular presentbeats the pants off
present participlebeating the pants off
pastbeat the pants off
past participlebeaten the pants off
past participlebeat the pants off
alternative formlick the pants off
alternative formwhip the pants off

Questions about beat the pants off

What does beat the pants off mean?
Beat the pants off means to thoroughly and decisively defeat someone, either in a physical fight or, figuratively, in a competition.
What part of speech is beat the pants off?
Beat the pants off is a verb.
What is the past tense of beat the pants off?
The past tense of beat the pants off is beat the pants off.

Words near beat the pants off in the dictionary

  1. beat the dummy
  2. beat the dust
  3. beat the hoof
  4. beat the meat
  5. beat the odds
  6. beat the pants off
  7. beat the poop out of
  8. beat the rap
  9. beat the shit out of
  10. beat the stuffing out of
  11. beat the system

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: beat the pants off (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.

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

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