punch someone's lights out
To give someone a serious beating using one's fistsTo give someone a serious beating using one's fists; to punch someone until he or she is unconscious.
Meaning
1 senses(idiomatic)To give someone a serious beating using one's fists; to punch someone until he or she is unconscious.
Origin
Chiefly by the metaphor of extinguishing someone's lights as sources of illumination (thusChiefly by the metaphor of extinguishing someone's lights as sources of illumination (thus putting out their lights, e.g., snuffing out their lamps, lanterns, candles, or torches), but the sense of light as sightedness or vision is cognitively adjacent, nearly setting up an interpretation of lights as referring to the eyes themselves, which close (via the eyelids) at the advent of unconsciousness; the potentially variable figurativeness behind by one's lights is comparable here.
Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0 · source
Forms
punches someone's lights out, punching someone's lights out, punched someone's lights out, punched someone's lights outirregular
| Base form | punch someone's lights out · to punch someone's lights out |
|---|---|
| 3rd person singular | punches someone's lights out |
| Present participle | punching someone's lights out |
| Past simple | punched someone's lights out |
| Past participle | punched someone's lights out |
Tenses
punch someone's lights out · punched someone's lights out · will punch someone's lights out · have punched someone's lights outPoint at a form to see it in a sentence.Tap a form to see it in a sentence.
Present simpleLesson
| I, you, we, they | punch someone's lights out |
| he, she, it | punches someone's lights out |
Present perfectLesson
| I, you, we, they | have punched someone's lights out |
| he, she, it | has punched someone's lights out |
Future simple (will)Lesson
| all persons | will punch someone's lights out |
Past simpleLesson
| all persons | punched someone's lights out |
Synonyms
3 synonymsLessons for this word
3 lessons- A1Present simple — Because it is a verb
- A1Past simple, regular verbs — Because of its past form
- A2Phrasal verbs: introduction — Because it is a phrasal verb
See also
neighbours in the dictionaryDictionary text adapted from Wiktionary (Wiktionary contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Open English WordNet / Princeton WordNet (CC BY 4.0, WordNet License); shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. Example sentences and recordings are credited where they appear.