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daylights

British

/ ˈdeɪˌlaɪts /

plural noun

consciousness or wits (esp in the phrases scare, knock, or beat the ( living ) daylights out of someone )

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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.

"We had one of those massive alarms that comes through on the phone, which scares the living daylights out of you," he said.

From BBC • Mar. 6, 2026

“You hear ‘chemo,’ and it scares the daylights out of you,” Coulier told Kotb.

From Los Angeles Times • Nov. 13, 2024

At the most wonderful time of the year, there is one tradition that John Maguire remembers fondly: his Liverpudlian grandmother trying to scare the daylights out of him.

From New York Times • Dec. 20, 2023

“I chose tennis because I loved that you can just hit the living daylights out of the ball.”

From Washington Times • May 31, 2023

These books were frankly meant to shock their middle- class readers—to scare the daylights out of them—even as they played on their sympathies.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times

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