verb. (common).—To flog. Hence SWISHING = a thrashing.
1855–7. THACKERAY, Miscellanies, ii. 470, ‘The Fashionable Authoress.’ I pity that young nobleman’s or gentleman’s case. Doctor Wordsworth and assistants would SWISH that error out of him in a way that need not here be mentioned.
d. 1876. M. COLLINS, Thoughts in my Garden, ii. 22. He has been known to argue with the head-master as to whether he ought to be SWISHED.
1884. YATES, Fifty Years of London Life, I. ii. To smoke a penny cigar, with constant anticipation of being caught and SWISHED.
1891. LEHMANN, Harry Fludyer at Cambridge, 47. He complained of us and Tipkins, and I got SWISHED the other day.
