scare the daylights out of

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.

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

And Greg Garcia uses outlandish tales to scare the daylights out of vacationers.

From New York Times • Aug. 3, 2017

Where you scare the daylights out of me is when you focus so much on more or less 'dicating' what the economic agents and the economy as a whole should do.

From Economist • Feb. 17, 2014

The commercial implications of defeat might scare the daylights out of the major unions but imagine the frenzy of interest elsewhere.

From The Guardian • Mar. 22, 2013

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