Word.ws English Dictionary

the pants off

the pants off phrase: an intensifier used with some transitive action verbs to indicate that the action is performed with thoroughness, vigor, or complete success.

Phrase

the pants off

  1. (idiomatic) An intensifier used with some transitive action verbs to indicate that the action is performed with thoroughness, vigor, or complete success.
    • He liked the water rides, but the big roller-coaster scared the pants off him.
    • "Dang you, Luck, if you wasn't such a little runt I'd come up there and jest about lick the pants off you!"1916, B. M. Bower, chapter 9, in The Heritage of the Sioux

Examples of the pants off in a sentence

  • "And did you also feel like you could whip the pants off any mother's son alive?"1937 April 5, “Miscellany”, in Time:
  • Reuters had scooped the pants off the U.S. press.1943 December 13, “The Press: Scooped Again”, in Time:
  • 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:
  • The Eden Project is his medium for getting that message across to the masses without boring the pants off them.2001 March 16, Christopher Redman Bodelva, “Feast of Eden”, in Time:

Synonyms of the pants off

Forms of the pants off

alternative formthe pants off of

Words formed from the pants off

Questions about the pants off

What does the pants off mean?
The pants off means an intensifier used with some transitive action verbs to indicate that the action is performed with thoroughness, vigor, or complete success.
How do you use the pants off in a sentence?
"And did you also feel like you could whip the pants off any mother's son alive?"
What part of speech is the pants off?
The pants off is a phrase.

Words near the pants off in the dictionary

  1. the other way round
  2. the other white meat
  3. The Other Wiki
  4. The Oval
  5. the pantaloons off
  6. the pants off
  7. the party is over
  8. The Pas
  9. the past has a vote, not a veto
  10. The Patch
  11. the pen is mightier than the sword

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: 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.

Last updated:

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

Cite this entry: “the pants off.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/the_pants_off. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.