What does bastinado mean?
Bastinado is a historical term for a form of corporal punishment in which the victim's bare feet are beaten with a rod, stick, or cudgel. Because the soles of the feet are densely packed with nerves but rarely sustain lasting structural damage, the punishment inflicted intense pain and temporary incapacitation while leaving the victim able to be punished again — which made it a favored penalty across the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and parts of Asia and North Africa for centuries. The word entered English in the early seventeenth century by way of Spanish 'bastonada', ultimately derived from the Late Latin root behind words like 'baton' and 'bastion'. Today 'bastinado' survives almost entirely in historical, literary, and journalistic contexts describing premodern justice systems, where it evokes institutionalized cruelty. It can denote either the whole procedure of foot-beating or, in a secondary sense, a single blow struck in that manner.
A punishment or torture consisting of blows administered to the soles of a person's bare feet, formerly common in the Ottoman Empire and parts of Asia; also, a single blow so delivered.
"Under Ottoman law, petty theft could earn the offender a bastinado in the marketplace."
When used countably, the plural is 'bastinadoes'.
(transitive) To punish or torture someone by beating them on the soles of the feet.
"The guards threatened to bastinado anyone caught attempting escape."
The verbal use exists but is considerably rarer than the noun.
The standard plural follows the regular '-oes' pattern for nouns ending in consonant + o, matching words like 'echoes' and 'torpedoes'.
"Survivors' accounts describe repeated bastinadoes inflicted over weeks."
This punishment was so notorious across the Ottoman Empire that its very name traveled into English from Spanish — and it targets one of the most nerve-dense parts of the human body.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of bastinado
Bastinado comes from the Spanish 'bastonada', meaning 'a blow with a stick', formed from 'bastón' ('cudgel, walking staff'), itself descended from Late Latin 'bastum' or related forms meaning a staff. English adopted the word in the early seventeenth century, when travelers and diplomats reported on punishments they had witnessed in the Ottoman Empire. It shares its underlying root with 'baton' and is distantly connected to 'bastion', both of which trace back to the same Latin word for a stout stick or beam.
How bastinado is actually used
Formal and largely historical in register; encountered mainly in historical, travel, or legal writing about punishments in the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and elsewhere. The word carries strong connotations of cruelty and archaic judicial brutality.
Easily confused with bastinado
'Bastinade' is simply an older variant spelling of the same word, not a different thing — both refer to beating the soles of the feet.