Word.ws English Dictionary

put someone's lights out

put someone's lights out verb: to cause someone to become unconscious, especially by striking him or her.

Verb

put someone's lights out (third-person singular simple present puts someone's lights out, present participle putting someone's lights out, simple past and past participle put someone's lights out)

  1. (idiomatic) To cause someone to become unconscious, especially by striking him or her.
    • "He's taken an awful lot of punches in his last few fights and if Thomas hits him like that, he'll put his lights out. It'll be like a blackout."1981 September 16, “More than 300 million to see THE fight tonight”, in Beaver County Times, retrieved 12 Nov 2015, page C1
    • "The last time I fought Mustafa, I just wanted to give him a beating. . . . This time, I want to put his lights out."1984 August 28, Bert Rosenthal, “Hagler looks forward to Garden visit”, in Kentucky New Era, retrieved 12 Nov 2015, page C1
    Synonyms:
    knock out

Synonyms of put someone's lights out

Forms of put someone's lights out

third-person singular presentputs someone's lights out
present participleputting someone's lights out
past participleput someone's lights out
pastput someone's lights out

Questions about put someone's lights out

What does put someone's lights out mean?
Put someone's lights out means to cause someone to become unconscious, especially by striking him or her.
What part of speech is put someone's lights out?
Put someone's lights out is a verb.
What is the past tense of put someone's lights out?
The past tense of put someone's lights out is put someone's lights out.

Words near put someone's lights out in the dictionary

  1. put someone to their trumps
  2. put someone under the screw
  3. put someone wise
  4. put someone's back up
  5. put someone's light out
  6. put someone's lights out
  7. put someone's pipe out
  8. put something behind one
  9. put something down to experience
  10. put something into perspective
  11. put something over

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: put someone's lights out (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-put someone's lights out.ogg.

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