flagellation
(ˌflædʒəˈleɪʃən)
Also 5 flagellacyon, 6 -cion.
[ad. L. flagellātiōn-em, n. of action f. flagellāre to flagellate.]
1. a. The action of scourging; a flogging, whipping.
| 1526 Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W. 1531) 13 Suffrynge..intollerable turmentes, flagellacyons, and moost cruell and bytter deth. 1664 H. More Myst. Iniq. 466 Excoriating their bodies in processionary Flagellations. 1765 Sterne Tr. Shandy VIII. xxxi, Speaking of his abstinence, his watchings, flagellations. 1838 Dickens Nich. Nick. xiii, A fearful instrument of flagellation, supple, wax-ended. 1875 H. C. Wood Therap. (1879) 161 Mild flagellations..may be used to keep up the external capillary circulation. |
| fig. 1490 Caxton Eneydos xx. 73 In all the places of thy flagellacyons, peynes and tormentes. 1502 Ord. Cryst. Men (W. de W. 1506) iv. v. 175 By sykenesses, losses of goodes, warres, and other flagellacyons. |
b. spec. The scourging of Christ; a picture representing this.
| 1426 Audelay Poems 55 Vij blodes Crist he bled..The thred in his flagellacion. 1630 Donne Deaths Duell (1632) 33 In his flagellation and thornes. 1703 Maundrell Journ. Jerus. (1732) 72 The first place they visited was that of the Pillar of Flagellation. 1741 Chambers Cycl. s.v. Flagellation, We say..a Flagellation to denote a picture, or print, representing the torment inflicted on the Saviour. |
2. Biol. a. The arrangement of flagella on an organism.
| 1893 J. Tuckey tr. Hatschek's Amphioxus 164 The flagellation of the body. |
b. = exflagellation.
| 1898 Jrnl. Exper. Med. III. 94 The process of flagellation presented by the elongate organism is remarkable. 1926 C. M. Wenyon Protozool. II. ii. 881 In the typical coccidia the male gametocyte produces male gametes after a relatively slow process of nuclear multiplication, while in the hæmosporidia the male gametes are formed by a violent process known as flagellation or exflagellation, which occurs in the stomach of the invertebrate. |
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Add: [1.] c. spec. Beating with whips, etc. to derive perverse sexual gratification. Cf. *fladge n.
| [1870 ‘W. M. Cooper’ Flagellation & Flagellants xlix. 516 The history of flagellation would be incomplete without some notice of the practice of whipping inflicted or received by persons of both sexes as a pleasurable sensation.] 1891 Med. & Surg. Reporter 15 Aug. 242/2 The Sexual Perversions..are classed as 1. Masturbation, sexual murder and anthropophagy. 2. Flaggellation [sic] [etc.]. 1928 Jrnl. Nervous & Mental Dis. LXVIII. 28 (heading) Sadism and Masochism: with a discussion on esoteric flagellation. 1959 E. Wilson Fifties (1986) 604 He suddenly began telling us he was no good at flagellation: ‘When they say, {oqq}Stop, stop!{cqq} I always stop, when what they really want is to have you go on.’ 1987 Observer 27 Sept. 26/7 Tynan's penchant for cross-dressing and the milder forms of flagellation did not cramp his prose style. |