Word.ws English Dictionary

knock the stuffing out of

knock the stuffing out of verb: to cause (someone, a team) to lose energy and confidence.

Verb

knock the stuffing out of (third-person singular simple present knocks the stuffing out of, present participle knocking the stuffing out of, simple past and past participle knocked the stuffing out of)

  1. (idiomatic, informal) To cause (someone, a team) to lose energy and confidence.
    • Chelsea knocked the stuffing out of Brighton well before the final whistle when they beat them 1-3 at Brighton.
    • "This knocks what is vulgarly termed 'the stuffing' out of the case for the prosecution," observed Carlyle, who had been taking a note.1923, Ernest Bramah [pseudonym; Ernest Brammah Smith], “(please specify the page)”, in The Eyes of Max Carrados, London: Grant Richards, →OCLC

Forms of knock the stuffing out of

third-person singular presentknocks the stuffing out of
present participleknocking the stuffing out of
past participleknocked the stuffing out of
pastknocked the stuffing out of

Questions about knock the stuffing out of

What does knock the stuffing out of mean?
Knock the stuffing out of means to cause (someone, a team) to lose energy and confidence.
What part of speech is knock the stuffing out of?
Knock the stuffing out of is a verb.
What is the past tense of knock the stuffing out of?
The past tense of knock the stuffing out of is knocked the stuffing out of.

Words near knock the stuffing out of in the dictionary

  1. knock the corners off
  2. knock the daylight out of
  3. knock the daylights out of
  4. knock the living daylights out of
  5. knock the persimmon
  6. knock the stuffing out of
  7. knock the wind out of someone's sails
  8. knock together
  9. knock under
  10. knock up
  11. knock wood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knock the stuffing 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.

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