词汇 | lick the hell |
释义 | (redirected from lick the hell)beat the (living) daylights out of (one)1. To physically attack one, as with punches and other blows, such that they suffer significant injury. This phrase can be used both literally and hyperbolically. Our neighbor is in the hospital because a burglar beat the daylights out of him. I'm worried that the captain of the football team will beat the living daylights out of me if he finds out that I'm secretly seeing his girlfriend. Oh, my boyfriend knows that I would beat the living daylights out of him if he ever lies to me about something that serious. 2. To defeat one decisively in a competition. The final score was 17-1? Wow, we really beat the living daylights out of that team! beat the living daylights out ofAlso, knock or lick the hell or living daylights or shit or stuffing or tar out of . Administer a merciless beating to; also, defeat soundly. For example, The coach said he'd like to beat the living daylights out of the vandals who damaged the gym floor , or Bob knocked the stuffing out of that bully, or He swore he'd beat the tar out of anyone who tried to stop him. These colloquial phrases nearly always denote a physical attack. In the first, daylights originally (1700) meant "the eyes" and later was extended to any vital ( living) body organ. Thus Henry Fielding wrote, in Amelia (1752): "If the lady says another such words to me ... I will darken her daylights" (that is, put out her eyes). Hell here is simply a swear word used for emphasis. The more vulgar shit and the politer stuffing allude simply to knocking out someone's insides. Tar is more puzzling but has been so used since the late 1800s. beat the living daylights out of, toTo punish severely, to thrash. This cliché is in effect a colorful elaboration of to beat someone up, an American locution dating from about 1900. The word daylights was a nineteenth-century American colloquialism for one’s vital organs. “That’ll shake the daylights out of us,” wrote Emerson Bennett (Mike Fink, 1852). Another writer referred to “pulling out” a mule’s daylights by beating it, and mystery writers of the early twentieth century sometimes had their characters “shoot the daylights” out of someone. Earlier British versions are to beat black and blue (Shakespeare), beat to a jelly (Smollett), and the equally hyperbolic beat to a pulp. Another American synonym is to beat the tar out of, which unlike the other fairly graphic equivalents is more puzzling, but has been used since about 1800. |
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