Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A beating with a stick or cudgel, especially on the soles of the feet.
  • noun A stick or cudgel.
  • transitive verb To subject to a beating; thrash.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To beat with a stick or cudgel; specifically, to beat on the buttocks or the soles of the feet, as a judicial punishment.
  • noun A blow or beating with a stick or cudgel, especially on the soles of the feet or on the buttocks; a cudgeling.
  • noun A mode of punishment in some Oriental countries, especially Turkey, Persia, and China, in which blows with a stick or lath of bamboo are inflicted on the soles of the feet or on the buttocks.
  • noun A stick or cudgel; the implement used in administering the bastinado.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • transitive verb To beat with a stick or cudgel, especially on the soles of the feet.
  • noun A blow with a stick or cudgel.
  • noun A sound beating with a stick or cudgel. Specifically: A form of punishment among the Turks, Chinese, and others, consisting in beating an offender on the soles of his feet.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A blow with a stick or cudgel.
  • noun A sound beating with a stick or cudgel, specifically: A form of punishment among the Turks, Chinese, and others, consisting in beating an offender on the soles of his feet.
  • verb transitive To punish someone by beating someone on the bare soles of the feet, using a stick or truncheon.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb beat somebody on the soles of the feet
  • noun a cudgel used to give someone a beating on the soles of the feet
  • noun a form of torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with whips or cudgels

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Alteration of Spanish bastonada, from baston, stick, from Vulgar Latin *bastō, *bastōn-.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Spanish bastonada (confer French bastonnade), from baston ("a stick or staff").

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Examples

  • We passed through the town, headed by a body of Ferashes, or footmen, carrying long rods, emblems of their office of executioners when the bastinado is inflicted.

    Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia 1856

  • The legal instruments of summary punishment which hang on the wall of the Naam – Hoi judgment-hall consist of three boards with proper grooves for squeezing the fingers, and the bastinado, which is inflicted with bamboos of different weights.

    The Golden Chersonese and the way thither Isabella Lucy 2004

  • The legal instruments of summary punishment which hang on the wall of the Naam-Hoi judgment-hall consist of three boards with proper grooves for squeezing the fingers, and the bastinado, which is inflicted with bamboos of different weights.

    The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither Isabella Lucy 1883

  • Chamberlain, is there not something in the constitution called bastinado?

    Lucky Pehr August Strindberg 1880

  • He is a desperate character, and in other lands might be dangerous; but he is safe enough here, for the bastinado is a terrible instrument of torture, and the man is now not only desperate in wrath, but is sometimes desperately frightened.

    The Pirate City An Algerine Tale 1859

  • The bastinado is the common punishment of the East, and an effective and dreaded one.

    Alroy The Prince Of The Captivity Benjamin Disraeli 1842

  • Severe bruising showed Police also beat them with canes on the soles of their feet - torture known as "bastinado".

    ANC Daily News Briefing 2003

  • A threat accompanies every command, and a bastinado is the usual reward of disobedience. "

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 3 of 4 American Anti-Slavery Society

  • A threat accompanies every command, and a bastinado is the usual reward of disobedience. "

    The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus American Anti-Slavery Society

  • A threat accompanies every command, and a bastinado is the usual reward of disobedience. "

    American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses 1839

Comments

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  • "Mr. McCain is a bit of a girlie-man when it comes to waterboarding high-value detainees; but that’s a tricky one, even for macho, red-meat conservative chest-thumpers. You get a pass on that one if you’ve spent five-and-a-half years being bastinadoed by North Vietnamese."

    - The New York Times, February 19, 2008

    February 20, 2008

  • JM reckons it was never a treat to have a bastinado.

    September 12, 2010