Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. US) to beat severely.

1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 342: Jesus, if she don’ come out I’m gonna beat de piss outa —.
1947		C. Willingham End as a Man (1952) 195: He’d go whip Wilson and probably mangle the piss out of him.
1949		H. Miller Sexus (1969) 172: A mental uppercut, that’s what he wanted of me. He was tired of beating the piss out of the other fellow – he wanted someone to go to work on him.
1952		J. Jones From Here to Eternity (1998) 220: He took that knife away from the guy and proceeded to beat the piss out of him.
1962		T. Berger Reinhart in Love (1963) 86: And Carlo, whom he had just been beating the piss out of, had almost to carry him back to bed.
1971		T. Thackrey Thief 292: There may have been a few who didn’t even get their kicks from beating the living piss out of some poor bastard.
1977		E. Torres Q&A 63: They pounce on us and start to pound the piss out of me.
1979		T. Alibrandi Killshot 53: Give you guys an education and you try to beat the piss out of everybody with it.
1982		W. Wharton Midnight Clear 95: I oughta stomp the pissin’ outa ya, mollycoddled lousy quizkid.
1991		C. Hiaasen Native Tongue 53: I’d beat the piss out of you, if I didn’t feel so bad.
2000		Guardian Editor 12 May 9: It beats the piss out of a StairMaster.
2015		D. Simon on themarshallproject.org 29 Apr. 🌐 When you have African-American officers beating the dog-piss out of people they’re supposed to be policing [...] it's pretty remarkable.
2016		Mother Jones July/Aug. 🌐 The kid grabbed his throat and tried to strangle him. ‘I damn near beat the piss out of him’.

lit. or fig., to beat severely.

1934		in G. Legman Rationale of the Dirty Joke (1972) I 86: If you don’t get off that horse this minute, I’ll kick the living piss out of you!
1934		H. Roth Call It Sleep (1977) 249: G’wan! [...] ’Fore we kick de piss ouda yiz.
1974		D. Jenkins Dead Solid Perfect 169: I hope I find her still taking on Fort Worth, playing the game by Fort Worth’s rules, but kicking the piss out of it.
1981		W.D. Myers Hoops 139: ‘So if you think you’re going to foul the sucker, knock the pee out of him so he knows he ain’t playing no Mickey Mouses’.
2011		R.F. Coleman ‘Requiem for Spider’ in Pulp Ink [ebook] I’d had the piss kicked out of me by some pretty rough motherfuckers.

to beat up, to assault.

1970

T. Parker Frying-Pan 61: They like the tough ones, they enjoy knocking the piss out of them.

to tease aggressively.

2000		P. Howard Miseducation of Ross O’Carroll-Kelly (2004) 64: I’m going ‘My name is Fionn. For Irish press one [...]’ ripping the piss out of him, basically.
2006		D. Mitchell Black Swan Green 107: Fancying girls’s dangerous [...] Kids at school rip the piss out of you.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 76: I’ve got a feeling I’m having the piss ripped out of me by General Mortimer.
2021		P Howard Braywatch 2: I’ve come along mainly just to rip the piss.

to terrify.

1965		(con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 174: He scared the piss out of them rich white folks!
1970		E. Thompson Garden of Sand (1981) 219: To scare the piss out of those old biddies was their collective intention.
1986		C. Stroud Close Pursuit (1988) 151: The PEP guys did real work — they scared the piss out of pushers and dealers.
2004		E. Appell Lessons from the Gypsy Camp 45: If you’re going to fight somebody, scare the piss out of them so they won’t turn you in.
2016		T. Robinson Rough Trade [ebook] ‘You scared the piss out of me!’.

1. to tease, esp. aggressively.

1946		R. Grinstead They Dug a Hole 8: In the Brigade of Guards [...] we have a language of our own, referring to this harmless, if at times extremely irritating, practice of ‘blackguarding’, or ‘taking the piss out of’ one’s fellows.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 47: I just can’t ’elp taking the piss.
1963		C. Wood ‘Spare’ in Cockade (1965) I i: I’ve had that – if you’d had that you wouldn’t piss take about it.
1965		G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 209: Whether to take the piss out of us, or because he thought it genuinely funny, he pretended to be a homosexual.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 192: She perpetually takes the piss out of you metropolitan ponces.
1981		W. Russell Educating Rita I i: Look, I know I take the piss an’ that but I’m dead serious really.
1996		(con. 1964-65) B. Thorpe Sex and Thugs and Rock ’n’ Roll 103: You’ve got to have a sense of humour in a band, and be able to take the piss out of one another.
1996		P. Howard The Joy (2015) [ebook] Everyone just takes the piss out of him [...] but he never cops it.
1999		Guardian G2 15 Mar. 4: She takes the piss out of his pretentiousness.
2001		J. Baker Shooting in the Dark (2002) 107: As soon as we relax you start taking the piss.
2007		L. Redhead Cherry Pie [ebook] ‘We used to take the piss out of Trip, not to his face of course’.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 62: ‘You’re taking the piss now,’ he says, getting twitchy.
2012		A. Savage ‘Killing Peacocks’ in Crime Factory: Hard Labour [ebook] I thought he was taking the piss until I saw them [i.e. peacocks] emerge from behind the house.
2017		T. Spicer Good Girl Stripped Bare 227: I decide to take the piss, peppering my pieces with humour.
2020		M. Hyde in Guardian 5 Sept. 🌐 If Cummings had any normal, non-elite friends, the piss would have been taken out of him absolutely relentlessly for this stuff.

2. to attack verbally, to sneer or jeer at.

1971		J. Mandelkau Buttons 143: They implied they had thought the prospects were wankers taking the piss out of the club.
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 23: A boy called Billy Robinson kept [...] taking the piss out of me.
1993		C. Fowler Darkest Day (1998) 335: Everyone started taking the piss out of the Pre-Raffs.
2000		Guardian 11 Jan. 4: I don’t think he’s racist or taking the piss out of black people.
2010		K. Richards Life 67: Loads of flash little sons of bitches would come down [...] to take the piss out of the art school students.
2016		A. Wheatle Crongton Knights 184: ‘You kept taking the living piss out of my uniform!’.
2018		G. Gilmore Base Nature [ebook] ‘You taking the piss? [...] Get up the stairs or fuck off’.

3. to make something up, to say something ludicrous, to make grand claims, to joke; e.g. he must be taking the piss, he must be joking (because what he is saying is so ridiculous or unfair etc).

1982		J. Sullivan ‘Ashes to Ashes’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] Listen I know the Government keeps asking us to save energy, but this is taking the piss!
1999		K. Sampson Powder 282: It’s a bad precedent, isn’t it, so early into a relationship. He’s taking the piss.
2000		Erotic Rev. Feb. 27: The idea that to hold back ejaculation all you have to do is tighten the same pelvic muscle that you use to stem the flow when you pass water, is, to employ the obvious phrase, taking the piss.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 37: Yir littin um take the pish again. Eftir aw the years that he humiliated ye.

4. of a person, to act absurdly, to play the fool.

1999		K. Sampson Powder 209: He could only think Adam was taking the piss by running up a drugs tab.
2000		N. Griffiths Grits 25: Specky looks at me as if tuh say: You takin’ thuh fuckin piss, mate?
2011		Guardian 8 Aug. 🌐 The kids have seen the opportunity to take the piss now – because they feel like they've been taken the piss out of their whole lives.
2019		M. Herron Joe Country [ebook] [T]here was leeway, and then there was taking the piss.

5. of a man, to have sexual intercourse.

1997

N. Barlay Curvy Lovebox 119: Cunt’s takin’ the fuckin’ piss.

to beat severely.

1996

UGK ‘That’s Why I Carry’ 🎵 I wanna whip the piss out / And this not a threat.

see beat the piss out of