Word.ws English Dictionary

knocking the living daylights out of

knocking the living daylights out of is the present participle and gerund of knock the living daylights out of.

Meaning of knock the living daylights out of

Verb

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

  1. (idiomatic) To beat or strike someone.
    • Boy, the fellows said he just knocked the living daylights out of him, bounced him six feet across the ground.1939, Ruth McKenney, Industrial Valley, →ISBN, page 255
  2. (idiomatic) To thoroughly and decisively defeat someone in a physical fight, especially by knocking out that person.
    • He won the English championship from the six-foot-three-inch, seventeen-stone Sam Hurst, the Staleybridge Infant, knocking the living daylights out of this champion1954, Denzil Batchelor, Big Fight: The Story of World Championship Boxing, →OCLC, page 65
    Synonyms:
    clobber
  3. (figuratively) To greatly excel against (someone or something).
    • ...where new and better depreciation regulations and a 7% business investment credit knocked the living daylights out of normal and historical accounting procedures...1963, “10 second summary”, in Business Management, volume 25, page 38

Questions about knocking the living daylights out of

What is knocking the living daylights out of the present participle and gerund of?
Knocking the living daylights out of is the present participle and gerund of knock the living daylights out of.

Words near knocking the living daylights out of in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knocking the living daylights out of (page history and authors); knock the living 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.

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