knock the stuffing out of

knock the stuffing out of (third-person singular simple present knocks the stuffing out of, present participle knocking the stuffing out of, simple past and past participle knocked the stuffing out of)

1. (informal, idiomatic) To cause (someone, a team) to lose energy and confidence.

   Chelsea knocked the stuffing out of Brighton well before the final whistle when they beat them 1-3 at Brighton.

   • 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:

     Added to these woes was the Treasury's demands for across-the-board train operator cost-cutting of broadly 10%. Passenger rail's slow, patchy and fragile recovery had the stuffing knocked out of it once more.

• “knock the stuffing out of”, in Collins English Dictionary.
• “knock the stuffing out of”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.
• “knock the stuffing out of”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.