punch-out
Americannoun
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a small section of cardboard or metal surrounded by perforations so that it can be easily forced out.
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Slang. a fistfight or brawl.
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Baseball. the air-punching gesture an umpire makes to denote a third strike, effectively ending the batter’s at-bat.
Stein didn’t develop his signature punch-out until his third season umpiring in the minors.
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Record one's time of departure from work, as in We never punch out at exactly five o'clock . This usage, dating from the 1920s, alludes to the use of a time clock. Also see punch in , def. 1.
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Eject from a military aircraft, as in The pilot punched out just before the plane blew up . [ Slang ; 1960s]
Etymology
Origin of punch-out
First recorded in 1925–30; noun use of verb phrase punch out
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.
Once, at a sleepover, I played so much “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” on my friend’s Nintendo that, when my father picked me up the next morning, I told him that he looked like Piston Honda, the cartoon champion of the game’s Minor Circuit—the guy you can sucker-punch when he wiggles his eyebrows.
“Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!” was released in 1987 for the original Nintendo Entertainment System.
“The Legend of Zelda” and, yes, “Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!!”
After the movie punch-out, Scheffler is pictured in a jail cell, in an orange jail suit, as a guard asks, since he has been in that cell for three days, if he wants to get out.
From Los Angeles Times
And the box, also unchanged since the beginning, features a punch-out spout that can cause a bit of a mess.
From Los Angeles Times
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.
