punch someone's lights out

verb

To give someone a serious beating using one's fists; to punch someone until he or she is unconscious.

Similar
beat someone's brains outbeat to a pulpknock someone's lights out
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Meanings

verbpunch someone's lights out (third-person singular simple present punches someone's lights out, present participle punching someone's lights out, simple past and past participle punched someone's lights out)

present singular third person punches someone's lights out · participle present punching someone's lights out · participle past punched someone's lights out · past punched someone's lights out

  1. idiomaticTo give someone a serious beating using one's fists; to punch someone until he or she is unconscious.

    A Jersey Guy is a guy who does his duty and loves his family and will punch your lights out if you insult his wife.

    2005 December 11, Terry Golway, “Jersey: Codey Can Now Bow Out With His Head Held High”, in New York Times, retrieved 12 Nov 2015
    2 more examples

    "My intention was to punch his lights out," Parker said of Garber, "but as I got closer to the mound, my faculties came back and I cooled off. I just him and asked him what was going on."

    1979 May 10, “NL Action is Wild and Woolly”, in Spokane Daily Chronicle, retrieved 12 Nov 2015, page 45

    After nasty phone calls, curses hurled over the back fence, fist-shaking, and other attempts to impress him with your seriousness, you meet him at the supermarket, lose control, and punch his lights out.

    1980 July 17, Mike Steere, “Mediation Can Replace Lawsuits”, in Toledo Blade, retrieved 12 Nov 2015, page 18

    Synonyms: beat someone's brains out, beat to a pulp, knock someone's lights out

Synonyms & antonyms

verbTo give someone a serious beating using one's fists; to punch someone until he or she is unconscious.

Similar
beat someone's brains outbeat to a pulpknock someone's lights out
Also see
beat someone's brains outknock someone's lights out

Origin

Chiefly 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.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

punch someone's lights out. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 5, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/punch%20someone's%20lights%20out

MLA

“punch someone's lights out.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/punch%20someone's%20lights%20out. Accessed November 5, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “punch someone's lights out,” accessed November 5, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/punch%20someone's%20lights%20out.

Source: punch someone's lights out on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.