pants off, the

Idioms  

1. This phrase is used to intensify the meaning of verbs such as. For example, That speech bored the pants off us, or It was a real tornado and scared the pants off me. Playwright Eugene O'Neill used it in Ah, Wilderness! (1933): “I tell you, you scared the pants off him,” and Evelyn Waugh, in A Handful of Dust (1934), had a variation, “She bores my pants off.” [Colloquial; early 1900s] Also see bore to death; beat the pants off.

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Example Sentences

This is a team that just swept the pants off the Dodgers, the Diamondbacks’ 4-2 victory Wednesday night at Chase Field in Phoenix finishing a three-games-to-none clinching of their National League Division Series and completing the most brutal of broom bashings.

From Los Angeles Times

We hope people and organizations who still believe in good government sue the pants off the state, and use the courts to their full advantage to overturn these rotten-to-the-core laws.

From Washington Times

They seem to forget that we were members of the party that was beating the pants off the Democrats for 30 years at all levels of government.

From Salon

Apple is beating the pants off the rest of the industry in the speed of the processor that’s the brain of the phone.

From Washington Post

Curbing our appetite for meat is a key part of preventing that catastrophe, but meat guys are beating the faux-leather pants off the veggie marketers.

From Salon