Daylight/daylights

The figurative use daylight in the sense of a perceptible and significant space between two things e.g. between two sports scores or between two runners in athletics, dates from the early 19th century. Daylights, in the plural, was originally slang for the eyes from the mid-18th century and was then extended to mean one’s general consciousness. See also Beat/scare the living daylights out of someone.