What does flogging mean?
A flogging is a punishment consisting of blows delivered with a whip, lash, or similar implement, typically applied to the back. For centuries it was a standard disciplinary measure in armies, navies, schools, and penal systems, where it was often administered publicly to maximize its deterrent effect. Over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, corporal punishment of this kind was progressively abolished across most of the world, and today the word survives mainly in historical accounts and in human-rights discussions of state-sanctioned beatings that persist in some jurisdictions. Beyond its literal sense, 'flogging' appears frequently in figurative language, most notably in the idiom 'flogging a dead horse', which describes futile effort expended on something already finished or beyond saving. In British English, the underlying verb 'to flog' also carries an informal commercial sense — selling goods, sometimes persistently or at low prices — giving the word an unexpectedly varied modern life despite its grim origins.
A beating administered with a whip, lash, or rod, especially as a formal judicial, military, or disciplinary punishment.
"Under the old naval code, theft could be punished by a flogging of up to several dozen lashes."
Almost always encountered today in historical contexts or discussions of corporal punishment still practiced in some countries.
The present participle and gerund of the verb 'flog': to beat with a whip; more broadly, to drive or exploit relentlessly, or (in British informal usage) to sell something persistently or cheaply.
"He kept flogging the exhausted horses long after the race was effectively lost."
The British informal selling sense ('flogging knockoff watches') is largely absent from American English, where the word retains almost exclusively literal or figurative-beating senses.
Standard countable plural, used when referring to multiple instances of the punishment.
"The ship's log recorded dozens of floggings during that single voyage."
The phrase 'flogging a dead horse' survives from an old seafaring practice: sailors were said to work 'dead horse' month — advance pay they'd already spent — and ceremonially drag a horse effigy across the deck before flogging it to mark the point when their real wages began.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of flogging
The verb 'flog', from which 'flogging' derives, first appears in English around the mid-seventeenth century, and its precise origin remains uncertain. It is widely believed to have originated as schoolboy slang in Britain, and some scholars have suggested a connection to the Latin 'flagellare' ('to whip'), which would make it cognate with words like 'flagellation'; however, this link is not firmly established. Whatever its source, the verb quickly displaced older terms such as 'whip' and 'scourge' in descriptions of formal corporal punishment, and 'flogging' became the standard noun for such beatings by the eighteenth century.
Related word forms
How flogging is actually used
'Flogging' carries strongly negative connotations of brutality and cruelty, and its use as judicial punishment is now illegal in most countries, so modern usage is overwhelmingly historical or figurative. In British English the verb 'to flog' has an additional informal sense — to sell something, often cheaply or aggressively ('flogging goods') — which extends to the gerund in phrases like 'flogging merchandise'. The figurative idiom 'flogging a dead horse' (British: also 'beating a dead horse' in American English) denotes wasting effort on something already concluded or hopeless.
Easily confused with flogging
Blogging means writing online journal entries, while flogging means whipping or beating — the words differ by only one letter but are entirely unrelated.