v. [Mentioned in 1676 as a cant word. Presumably of onomatopœic formation; cf. FLACK, FLAP; if it originated in school slang, it may have been suggested by L. flagellare.]
1. trans. To beat, whip; to chastise with repeated blows of a rod or whip.
1676. Coles, Flog, to whip [marked as a cant word].
1740. Christm. Entertainm., ii. (1883), 10. I was daily fed with Terrors, and as duly chastised for swallowing them; then I was as certainly flogged if I told what was called a Lye.
1784. Cowper, Tiroc., 328.
| What shifts he used, detected in a screpe, | |
| How he was flogged, or had the luck t’ escape. |
1809. Byron, Lett. to Hodgson, 25 June, Wks. (1846), 14/1. The women (blessed be the Corporation therefor!) are flogged at the cart’s tail when they pick and steal, as happened to one of the fair sex yesterday noon. She was pertinacious in her behaviour, and damned the mayor.
1830. Marryat, King’s Own, i. A man sentenced to be flogged round the fleet receives an equal part of the whole number of lashes awarded alongside each ship composing that fleet.
1852. Mrs. Stowe, Uncle Tom’s C., xxxiii. Wal, then, Tom shall have the pleasure of flogging her. It ’ll be a good practice for him, and he won’t put it on to the gal like you devils, neither.
1881. Besant & Rice, Chapl. Fleet, I. 49. As for barbarities, are we Protestants better than our neighbours? Is it not barbarous to flog our soldiers and sailors for insubordination; to flog our rogues at the cart-tail; to lash the backs of women in Bridewell; to cut and scourge the pickpockets so long as the alderman chooses to hold up the hammer?
absol. 1717. Swift, Molly Mog, iv.
| The school-boy’s desire is a play-day, | |
| The school-master’s joy is to flog; | |
| The mild-maid’s delight is on May-day, | |
| But mine is on sweet Molly Mog. |
1887. L. Stephen, in Dict. Nat. Biog., XI. 303. Boyer flogged pitilessly, but Coleridge was grateful for his shrewd onslaughts upon commonplaces and bombast.
b. Const. into, out of, through.
1830. Gentl. Mag., C. Jan., 56/2. Providence flogged him [Richter] into contentment.
1852. Smedley, L. Arundel, i. 12. I have not forgotten the Greek and Latin flogged into us at Westminster.
1886. J. Westby-Gibson, in Dict. Nat. Biog., VI. 42/1. Being fond of classics, he [Bowdich] soon became head boy, but what he knew of mathematics he was ‘flogged through.’
1887. Hall Caine, Coleridge, i. 21–2. ‘So, sirrah, you are an infidel are you?’ he said; ‘then I’ll flog your infidelity out of you!’
c. To urge forward (a horse, etc.) by flogging. Also fig. (In early 19th c. to urge on by importunity, etc.)
1793. Spirit Pub. Jrnls. (1799), I. 111. Two of the largest [turkeys] in the whole flock were flogged up into the boot of a mail-coach, while his head was turned another way.
1800. I. Milner, in Life, xii. (1842), I. 220. If your papers had contained the plague I could not have been more fearful of opening them; nor did I once untie the string or peep into them, till I was flogged by good Richardson last winter, to let him have the Life.
1806–7. J. Beresford, Miseries Hum. Life (1826), II. xvi. The flaccidity of mind with which you attempt to flog yourself up into an inclination to work in your garden, for the sake of exercise.
1841. G. P. R. James, Brigand, iii. Take off the bridles of their horses, and flog them down the valley to Gandelot’s inn.
d. fig. in phrases, To flog the glass (see quot.); to flog the clock, to move the hands forward.
1769. Falconer, Dict. Marine (1789), Manger du sable, to flog the glass, or cheat the glass; expressed of the steersman, who turns the watch-glasses before they have run out, in order to shorten the period of his watch.
1894. Daily Chron., 4 Aug., 3/5. I got suspicious that it [the clock] was being flogged—that is, altered—in the interest of making the time of those in the mate’s watch shorter.
2. fig. a. slang. To ‘beat,’ excel. b. dial. in pass. To tire out. Cf. DEAD-BEAT A.
1836. T. E. Hook, Gilbert Gurney, II. i. 48. I know nothing of the spirit business—but I’ll be hanged, as far as taste goes, if I don’t think good cherry-bounce flogs all the foreign trash in the world.
1847. Le Fanu, T. O’Brien, xxxix. 253. Of all the brimstone spawn that I ever came across, that same she-devil flogs them.
1875. Parish, Sussex Gloss., s.v. ‘I was fairly flogged by the time I got home.’
1883. E. A. Freeman, in W. R. W. Stephens, Life & Lett. (1895), II. 274. I think for position it [Le Puy] flogs every place I know.
3. In general sense: To beat, lash, strike; also with down. Fishing. To cast the fly-line over (a stream) repeatedly; also absol. Cricketing. To ‘punish’ (bowling).
1801. Wolcott (P. Pindar), Tears & Smiles, Wks. 1812, V. 44.
| And lo! the Great her counsel take, | |
| And ears of poor folks crop; | |
| Nay, flog the poor at times (poor souls!) | |
| As schoolboys flog a top. |
1837. Marryat, Snarleyyow; or The Dog Fiend, v. The vessel so flogged by the waves, that he was lashed to the rigging, that he might not be washed away.
1853. Herschel, Pop. Lect. Sc., I. § 23 (1873), 17. In the earthquake of Cutch, which I have mentioned, trees were seen to flog the ground with their branches, which proves that their stems must have been jerked suddenly away for some considerable distance and as suddenly pushed back.
1859. Jephson, Brittany, v. 56. Brittany is, in fact, a perfect paradise for the fly-fisher: it is intersected by innumerable trout-streams, which have not yet been flogged by cockneys, and the trout are as simple and unsuspecting as the pretty Bretonnes who wash in their waters.
1867. F. Francis, Angling, ix. (1880), 327. A salmon regularly bullied into rising by an obstinate customer who wouldn’t take ‘No’ for an answer, but who kept flogging on till the favourable moment arrived.
1884. I. Blyth, in Lillywhite’s Cricket Ann., 8. Bonnor … flogged the bowling to the extent of 54.
1892. Whymper, Great Andes, iii. 68. The only possible way of proceeding was to flog every yard of it [the snow] down, and then to crawl over it on all fours; and, even than, one or another was frequently submerged, and almost disappeared.
b. intr. Of a sail: To beat or flap heavily.
1839. Marryat, Phantom Ship, II. xxii. 224. The storm-staysail yielding to the force of the wind, was rent into strips, and flogged and cracked with a noise louder than the gale.
4. Comb., as flog-master, a prison flogger.
1702. T. Brown, Lett. Dead to Living, Wks. 1760, II. 205. Whenever he met with a cavalier, he did so firk and jirk him, that Busby was never a greater terror to a blockhead, or the Bridewell flog-master to a night-walking strumpet, than he is at this day to a high-flyer or a Jacobite.
Hence Flogged, Flogging ppl. adjs.
1682. [see FLAUGING].
1836. Gen. P. Thompson, Exerc. (1842), IV. 99. Producing thereby a majority of 212 to 95 in favour of keeping us what Mr. Cobbett denominated ‘a flogged people.’
1884. Athenæum, 19 July, 75/3. His sojourn at a cheap private school, where he undergoes brutal treatment from a flogging master and bullying schoolfellows.
1891. The Saturday Review, LXXI. 21 March, 343/2. The sanguinary Artemis Orthia of Sparta was propitiated by the blood of flogged boys.
