Also 5–6 stryppe, strype, 6 strip, 7 stripp. [Prob. from LG. or Du.: cf. mod.Du. strippen to whip, strips flogging (in strips krijgen to get a flogging), also mod. WFris. strips; but these words have not been found so early as the Eng. word. Cf. also MLG. strippe strap, whip-lash (see STRIP sb.2).
The common view that this word is a use of STRIPE sb.3 would be plausible (on the assumption that sense 3 below is the original), but for the fact that STRIPE sb.3 is not recorded till the 17th c., while this sb. occurs in the 15th c.]
† 1. A blow or stroke with a staff, sword, or other weapon, with a missile, with the claws or hoofs of an animal, etc. Cf. HAND-stripe. Obs.
c. 1475. Songs & Carols (Percy Soc.), 92. A strype ore ij. God myght send me, If my husbond myght her se me.
1530. Palsgr., 277/2. Stryppe, stroke or swappe, coup.
1530. Tindale, Gen. iv. 23. I haue slayne a man and wounded my selfe, and have slayn a yongman, and gotte my selfe strypes.
1542. Udall, Erasm. Apoph., 11 b. If an Asse had geven me a strype with his heele. Ibid., 289. Receiuyng a stripe with a sweorde, he gaue but one sole grone, & [etc.].
1544. Betham, Precepts War, I. lvi D ij. And so either wil they suffre to take their cytye, or els they wyl fyght with the, and deale strypes.
1545. Ascham, Toxoph., II. (Arb.), 123. The shaftes in Inde were verye longe,… and therfore they gaue ye greater strype.
a. 1548. Hall, Chron., Hen. VI., 128 b. Thei lefte woordes, and went to stripes.
a. 1552. Leland, Itin. (1769), V. 54. The Egle doth sorely assaut hym that distroith the nest, goyng doun in one Basket, and having a nother over his Hedde to defend the sore Stripe of the Egle.
1579–80. North, Plutarch, P. Æmilius (1595), 271. Perseus went from the battell … because he had a stripe of a horse on the thigh the day before.
1580. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 129. Maides, mustard seede gather, for being too ripe, and weather it well, er ye giue it a stripe.
1596. Spenser, F. Q., V. xi. 27. With one stripe Her Lions clawes he from her feete away did wipe.
† b. A touch on the keys of an instrument; hence, measure, strain. Obs.
1590. Greene, Never too Late, I. (1600), B 1 b. As in field this sheepheard lay, Tuning of his oaten pipe, which he hit with many a stripe. Ibid. (1592), Vision, Wks. (Grosart), XII. 198. Tytirus … Straigned dities from his pipe, With pleasant voyce and cunning stripe.
1613–6. W. Browne, Brit. Past., I. ii. 3. Now till the Sunne shall leaue ys to our rest,… I shall goe on: and first in diffring stripe, The floud-Gods speech thus tune on Oaten pipe [Here the metre changes]. Ibid., II. iii. 731. And scarce one ended had his skilfull stripe, But streight another tooke him to his Pipe.
2. A stroke or lash with a whip or scourge. Now arch., chiefly in plural.
c. 1485. Digby Myst., Mary Magd., 1176. Stryppys on þi ars þou xall have.
1526. Tindale, Luke xii. 47. The servaunt that knowe his masters wyll, and prepared not him silfe,… shalbe beten with many strypes.
1580. E. Knight, Trial Truth, 82 b. Euen as a good father or master that threateneth and shaketh the rod before hee layeth on the strypes.
c. 1623. Lodge, Poor Mans Talent, C 1. Somtimes the said paine commeth by a blow or stripp.
1692. J. Washington, trans. Milton’s Def. People Eng., ii. 33. The Hebrew Kings were liable … to be punished with stripes, if they were found faulty.
1780. J. Howard, Prisons Eng., 141. Keepers are punished for this … by a fine for the first offence; and for the second by stripes.
1788. Massachusetts Spy, 25 Sept., 3/3. On Thursday last, fifteen persons were publickly punished,… William Nelson, 64 stripes.
1836. Cobden, in Morley Life (1881), I. iii. 53. The backshish kept the boat going, when stripes would have only made it stand.
1836. Capt. Boldero, Sp. Ho. Comm., 13 April, in Hansard, 942. Colonel Evans also had commanded in many regiments, in which not a stripe had been inflicted for two or three years.
1839. Fr. A. Kemble, Resid. in Georgia (1863), 39. Labor exacted with stripes—how do you fancy that?
1887. Hall Caine, Life Coleridge, i. 25. There is a tradition that Bowyer sometimes gave him an extra stripe of the birch ‘because he was so ugly.’
fig. 1830. Carlyle, Richter Again, Ess. 1840, II. 319. In regard to moral matters Leipzig was his true seminary, where, with many stripes, Experience taught him the wisest lessons.
1851. T. T. Lynch, Lett. to Scattered (1872), 202. Each passing day both gives to us and takes from us. It may give a stripe, a smile, a counsel, a reproach.
† b. A stroke of divine judgment. Obs.
1564–78. Bullein, Dialogue, 37. By what signe or token is this perilous plague or stripe of the pestilence best knowen emong the Phisitions?
1609. Bible (Douay), Exod. vii. Annot. 173. It ought to haue auailed Pharao to saluation, that Gods patience deferring his iust and deserued punishment, multiplied vpon him frequent stripes of miracles.
1623. Lisle, Ælfric on O. & N. Test., Pref. 13. The least stripe that God giveth man after this life, is everlasting damnation.
† c. Said of a person: A ‘scourge.’ Obs.
1570. Satir. Poems Reform., xiii. 99. Ȝe wer ay callit for ȝour tyrannie Strypis of the Schyre.
† 3. The mark left by a lash; a weal. Obs. rare.
c. 1440. Promp. Parv., 480/1. Stripe, or schorynge wythe a baleys, vibex.
c. 1475. Pict. Voc., in Wr.-Wülcker, 791/23. Hec vibex, a strype.
1726–46. Thomson, Winter, 373. Little tyrants … At pleasure mark’d him with inglorious stripes.
† b. fig. A mark of disgrace. Obs.
1607. Heywood, Wom. Killed w. Kindn., IV. v. Wks. 1874, II. 140. Her spotted body Hath stain’d their names with stripe of bastardy.
