knock spots off easily outdo. informal

☞ This expression may refer to shooting out the pips (spots) on a playing card in a pistol-shooting competition. Although it is now found chiefly in British English, the phrase originated in America.

2012Daily Telegraph Julian Temperley, traditionalist cider-maker, faces down the Eurocrats' regulations that pander to the French by making his own English cider brandy (knocks spots off Calvados).