
“Douse the glim” is an old Scottish phrase meaning “put out the light”. It gained prominence during the Anglo-Boer war in South Africa, where it was used by Scottish soldiers to signal the extinguishing of fires and lights to avoid detection by the Boers. “Douse the glim” is now also the name of a place near Garies in the Northern Cape, where a Scottish regiment was encamped in 1902. The phrase is also used in the context of extinguishing something, either literally or figuratively - such as knocking out a person’s lights.