beat the pants off

Idioms

Also, beat hollow. Win decisively over someone, outdo. For example, When it comes to the Patriots' Day parade, Lexington beats the pants off the neighboring towns, or This beer beats the other brands hollow. Both phrases use beat in the sense of “surpass.” Pants off has served as an intensifier since about 1930; the variant dates from about 1775.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

But if you have the time, a kitchen and a little extra cash, almost any home-cooked meal is going to beat the pants off a fast-food dinner.

From Washington Post • Sep. 15, 2022

“I believe that was the first time that a deep learning, neural net-based approach beat the pants off more standard approach,” says Ferguson, the former Google engineer.

From The Verge • May 9, 2018

When he first arrived in the mid-1920s, John Steinbeck recalled, “the city had beat the pants off me. Whatever it required to get ahead, I didn’t have.”

From New York Times • Jul. 24, 2014

According to Dr. Lem, “Not only are they cheaper, but they also perform better. Wall Street’s dirty little secret is that index funds beat the pants off almost all actively managed funds.”

From US News • May 28, 2014

And I did beat the pants off him, too.

From "Ida B" by Katherine Hannigan

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023