Definitions
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb Alternative spelling of
spiflicate .
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word spifflicate.
Examples
-
The proposer declared with some heat that "no coloured gentleman would spifflicate his missus wid a bolster on de word of a mean white thief like dat _Iago_."
Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, 1920-01-21 Various
-
"I won't tell ye a second time -- hand me that stick, or I'll spifflicate ye."
Two Little Savages Being the adventures of two boys who lived as Indians and what they learned Ernest Thompson Seton 1903
-
And, lo, there it was: "spifflicate" = 1. (jocular) to destroy; 2. to beat (in a fight etc).
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Hubert van den Bergh 2012
-
And, lo, there it was: "spifflicate" = 1. (jocular) to destroy; 2. to beat (in a fight etc).
Telegraph.co.uk - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph Hubert van den Bergh 2012
-
I on'y ast you to stand by and spifflicate the niggers.
The Ebb-Tide Lloyd Osbourne 1907
-
I guess, I'll spifflicate him when I sees him! "he yelled out at the pitch of his voice; and then pretending to recognise Jan Steenbock for the first time as his detractor, he added, still more significantly," Oh, it air you, me joker, air it? "
The Island Treasure 1887
whichbe commented on the word spifflicate
To treat roughly or severely; destroy.
The dictionary senses given for this now rather rare word hardly do justice to a slang term that has had several meanings. Its origins lie in the eighteenth century in Britain, though where its first users got it from remains a mystery. The experts hazard a guess that it was probably a fanciful conflation — suggestions include stifle + suffocate and spill + castigate. You can spell it with one f or two, as the fancy takes you, though when it first appeared it had only one.
Over half a century, it rapidly developed from its initial sense of "confound, silence or dumbfound", through "handle roughly or treat severely", to "crush, destroy or kill". T W E Holdsworth borrowed the last of these in Campaign of the Indus of 1840: "Of the enemy, about 500 were killed, and more than 1500 made prisoners; and of the remainder, who made their escape over the walls, the greater part were cut down by the Dragoons, or spifflicated by the Lancers." Despite these gory associations, by about 1900 it had softened in Britain into a jokey term for some unspecified but vaguely unpleasant punishment with which one might threaten a naughty child ("I'll spifflicate you if you won't be quiet!").
In America at around the same date, the word took on another sense still, that of being drunk. An early example is from the sporting section of the Washington Post of July 1904: "They forced his teeth open, and, while a couple of them sat on his chest, they poured about a quart of corn liquor into his system. He was so spifflicated before they let him up that they had to lift him bodily and plant him in a seat."
(from World Wide Words)
May 28, 2008
bilby commented on the word spifflicate
My mother has taken it upon herself to ensure all her grandchildren know and use this word. There are regular demonstrations of teddy bear spifflication in this cause.
May 28, 2008
dontcry commented on the word spifflicate
My dog spifflicated a squirrel last winter which caused me to hork up my breakfast.
May 28, 2008