Link Centre Dictionary

flog

UK/flɒɡ/ US/flɑɡ/ uncommon informal slang uk

verb

1.

beat severely with a whip or rod

  • “The teacher often flogged the students”
  • “The children were severely trounced”
Synonyms
2.

beat with a cane

Synonyms

Origin

From Middle English *floggen (suggested by flogge (“hammer, sledge”), from Old English *floggian, a stem variant of Proto-Germanic *flukkōną (“to beat”), itself a secondary zero-grade iterative with unetymological -u-, derived from *flōkaną. The original zero-grade iterative *flakkōną had been misinterpreted as an o-grade. See flack (“to beat”), also as a dialectal noun "a blow, slap". Cognate with Scots flog (“a blow, stripe, flogging”, noun), Scots flog (“thin strip of wood”), Norwegian flak (“a piece torn off, strip”). Alternatively, a back-formation from flogger, from Low German flogger (“a flail”).

Phrases

  • flog a dead horse
  • flog a dead pony
  • flog someone round the fleet
  • flog the bishop
  • flog the clock
  • flog the dolphin
  • flog the log

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

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WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.