Green’s Dictionary of Slang

daylight n.1

the space left in a glass between the top of the liquid and the rim; such a space is not allowed when drinking bumpers, thus the toast no daylight!

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[UK]G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist II 211: Strict attention to the laws, methods and ceremonies of giving toasts, and drinking bumpers. The President opened the scene with a lecture upon ‘Fines, Heeltaps, Day-lights’.
[UK]‘A Pembrochian’ Gradus ad Cantabrigiam 54: day-light, or sky-light, in the easy attained science of hard drinking, when the glass is not a bumper.
[UK]‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 407: Merrywell kept the glass in circulation, insisting on no day-light nor heel-taps.
[UK]E. Howard Rattlin the Reefer 33: No heel-taps after, and no daylight before.
[Ind]Bellew Memoirs of a Griffin II 97: ‘Pass the bottle [...] fill up a bumper; come, a brimmer; no daylight, Sir’.
, , [UK]Hotten Sl. Dict. 118: daylights [...] Also the spaces left in glasses between the liquor and the brim, ? not allowed when bumpers are drunk. The toast-master in such cases cries ‘no daylights or heeltaps!’.

SE in slang uses

In phrases

let the daylight into/through (v.) (also let moonlight into, let sunshine through, ... the sun shine through, put daylight into/through, show daylight through)

to shoot, to stab.

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[UK]Memoirs of the celebrated Miss Fanny M-. 53: The officer [...] brandishing his sword, made several lounges, crying ‘Here I have the rascal; — there I shew day-light through the rascal’ .
[UK]Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 412: Be who you will it will undo ye, / If I should make the moon shine thro’ ye.
[UK]Bridges Burlesque Homer (4th edn) II 220: [as cit. 1772].
[US]J.K. Paulding John Bull in America 266: If I ever meet that man again in this country, he or I shall have daylight shine through us.
[US]Spirit of the Times (NY) 4 Feb. 1/2: Darken his daylights [...] make the sun shine through him.
[UK]R.S. Surtees Jorrocks Jaunts (1874) 171: I’ll order pistols and coffee for two to-morrow morning at Napoleon's column, and let the daylight through your carcas.
[US]T. Haliburton Clockmaker III 151: I’ve got loadin’ iron, ‘speechifier’ by name, that never missed her man since Lucifer Wolfe owned her. She’ll let daylight shine thro’ some o’ them Blue-noses.
[Aus]Bell’s Life in Sydney 6 Nov. 3/1: [He] administered divers hits which nearly knocked daylight through his body.
[US]W.L. Goss Soldier’s Story 205: I reckon I’d er let daylight through yer [...] if yer hadn’t stopped.
[Ire]C.J. Kickham Knocknagow 311: Be cripes! [...] he’s goin’ to let the daylight through some wan!
[US]A.A. Hayes New Colorado 155: I’ll let the daylight through ye if ye don’t sit down — quick!
[Aus]H. Nisbet Bushranger’s Sweetheart 294: No more humbug, or I’ll let the moonlight into you.
[UK]Lichfield Mercury 3 June 6/2: By heaven, my young dude, if you were in the States [...] ’d let daylight into you.
[US]H. Garland Boy Life on the Prairie 371: You’ve got to rastle fair, or I’ll let the daylight into you.
[Aus]Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 19 Oct. 3/5: Some men, when they get tired of roosting on this sphere [...] let daylight into their manly bosoms with the aid of a gun and bullet.
[US]Bruner & Francis ‘A Short Word-List From Wyoming’ in DN III vii 551: shoot full of daylight, emphatic for shoot.
[Aus]‘Banjo’ Paterson ‘Sitting in Judgement’ in Three Elephant Power 93: The rider let daylight into him with his spurs.
[Ire]Joyce Ulysses 314: As much as his bloody life is worth to go down and address his tall talk to the assembled multitude in Shanagolden where he daren’t show his nose with the Molly Maguires looking for him to let daylight through him for grabbing the hold of an evicted tenant.
[US]R.E. Howard ‘Texas Fists’ Fight Stories May 🌐 You’re goin’ to do just what I says or get the daylight let through you.
[UK](con. WWI) F. Richards Old Soldiers Never Die (1964) 38: Buffalo Bill [...] wouldn’t have given him that chance, but soon put daylight through him.
[UK]Ex-Légionnaire 1384 Arab Patrol 294: An agent of L’Espionage Centrale was bound to catch it one way or another [...] it was better to go out this way, after letting daylight into thirteen dirty Arabs.
[US]R.F. Adams Cowboy Lingo 171: When one killed another, he [...] ‘let sunshine through him like he’s a pane o’ glass’.
[NZ]R. Finlayson Brown Man’s Burden 82: You fix it up to marry Mary or by heaven! [...] I’le get my ole gun out and blow daylight through your head.
[US]T. Thackrey Thief 295: Anywhere else, they’d be piping daylight to them.
[US]S. King Stand (1990) 797: That ole boy [...] would probably drag out his Remington and let daylight through me.
[US]T. Dorsey Cadillac Beach 258: Should have strapped iron and put daylight into the hinky shamus who dropped the dime.