What is the origin of the phrase "the living daylights"?

Question

As in he beat the living daylights out of me.

Answer 1

In the 1700s "daylights" was slang for "eyes." Your eyes are the windows to your soul, the tools that allow you to take in the world around you, and in a way represent your "vital energy" or spirit. To get the "daylights" knocked/scared out of you was to lose (metaphorically) a vital part of yourself.
The "living" part serves only to intensify the saying, and is actually redundant (in fact, sometimes it is not even included) because your "daylights" are always alive.
Another theory says that "living daylights" was a corruption of "liver and lights" — "lights" being an old word for "lungs." To get the "liver and lights" knocked out of you is a pretty graphic description of getting pummelled, and the phrase actually appeared in Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn. It seems more likely that the two phrases are unrelated, and their similarity coincidental.
Some said that the phrase was boxing slang from the 18th century. 'Daylights' mean human eyes and the object of any boxing match is to knock out the opponent. That would explain the pugilistic reference. A modern contracted form of the phrase which describes an unconscious person as having been knocked 'lights out'.
Geoff Hughes, a professor of history of the English language suggests that "living daylights" derives from the phrase "the liver and lights". "Lights" is fairly common slang for lungs.

Answer 2

If you are old enough to remember Cheeres then you will understand when I say that I am not trying to sound like 'Cliff' but the term 'Living Daylights' I have heard came about at the same time that the term 'Graveyard Shift' and sever others. The story goes that many years ago people were buried before they were actually dead. So to solve that they would set up a pole with a bell attached to it and a length of rope and run it from the bell into the coffin were the person was buried. If the person turned out to be alive they would pull on the rope and ring the bell... they would then be dug up and see the 'Living Daylights'. Also the 'Graveyard Shift' was the shift of the person that would watch and listen for the bell. Hope this helps...

Answer 3

Actually the answer above me isn't true, according to this site
http://www.worldwidewords.org/qa/qa-sav1.htm

And it says it derives from
"The word daylights was used in the eighteenth century to mean one’s eyes. The first example on record is from 1752, in Amelia by Henry Fielding: “If the lady says such another word to me ... I will darken her daylights.” It extended its meaning through the following half century to mean any vital part of the body, not just the eyes.

So a sentence like “they had the daylights beaten out of them” would be taken more or less literally to mean that the persons concerned suffered severe injury. There are many examples in the nineteenth century of expressions like “knock the daylights out of him” or “scare the daylights out of him”. The word is still common today in several fixed phrases, though it’s usually used figuratively. One example chosen at random: “The Bulldogs beat the daylights out of Rice 52-21 in a Western Athletic Conference game” appeared in the Fresno Bee in November 2004. However, hardly anyone now knows what one’s daylights actually are.

In the later nineteenth century, the original term was expanded to living daylights. Perhaps daylights by then had become less clear in meaning, so that an extra word had to be added to restore its full force. It was unnecessary repetition, since one’s daylights were always alive, but logic has never been a powerful influence on the creators of words and phrases. The earliest example I’ve come across is from a newspaper dated 1891: “‘Jehosaphat!’ said the sportsman. ‘I’m not going to be insulted by a miserable rabbit,’ and he started to club the living daylights out of the beast with his gun.”

Answer 4

Daylights can also reference to windows because they allow daylight in. They beat the living daylights out of him would refer to his eyes or that he was broken or beaten badly.

Answer 5

Bond, James Bond