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beat the pants off
Idioms and Phrases
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
“I’d like to beat the pants off them,†Nero said at the time.
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.
“Gosh, no wonder you beat the pants off the rest of us,†said Dee, laughing.
With a surprisingly easy 79-61 win, the Hurricanes more or less beat the pants off Auburn.
“She would beat the pants off of Trump,†said Taylor, who’s in the moving and storage business.
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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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