Word.ws English Dictionary

knocks the living daylights out of

knocks the living daylights out of is the third-person singular simple present indicative 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 knocks the living daylights out of

What is knocks the living daylights out of the third-person singular simple present indicative of?
Knocks the living daylights out of is the third-person singular simple present indicative of knock the living daylights out of.

Words near knocks the living daylights out of in the dictionary

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

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: knocks 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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