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Drubbing   /drˈəbɪŋ/   Listen
Drubbing

noun
1.
A sound defeat.  Synonyms: debacle, slaughter, thrashing, trouncing, walloping, whipping.
2.
The act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows.  Synonyms: beating, lacing, licking, thrashing, trouncing, whacking.






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"Drubbing" Quotes from Famous Books



... arrested his attention in the courtyard of the manse. His man "Jock," who had lately been a weaver in the neighbouring village, had rudely declined to wipe the minister's shoes, as requested by Mrs Gardner, when the enraged matron, snatching a culinary utensil, administered a hearty drubbing to the shoulders of the impudent boor, and compelled him to execute her orders. The minister witnessing the proceeding from the window, was highly diverted, and gave the air he had just completed the title ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various

... time past; and Dominic Braydon had still fresh in his memory that day when he had resisted a piece of tyranny and fought at the far end of the school garden, where an unlucky blow on the bridge of the nose had half blinded him and made him an easy victim to the enemy, who administered a severe drubbing and procured for his adversary a birching for fighting—it was before caning days—and a long series of impositions for obstinacy, a trait the doctor said that he absolutely abhorred—Dominic's obstinacy consisting in a stubborn refusal to confess ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn

... slashing the face of a poor courtezan, who had cheated him.[21] It will certainly be admitted, that a man, surprised in the dark and beaten by ruffians, loses no honour by such a misfortune. But, if Dryden had received the same discipline from Rochester's own hand without resenting it, his drubbing could not have been more frequently made a matter of reproach to him;—a sign surely of the penury of subjects for satire in his life and character, since an accident, which might have happened to the greatest hero who ever lived, was resorted to as an imputation ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott

... chauffeur's troubles were over. After such a drubbing, the nuisance of the congestion to which they were soon contributing was like a flick on the collar, and ten minutes later the car was berthed safely with two or three others ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates

... nicely dressed, and at the same moment the mongrel, who had helped me to pick up my matches the day before, came alongside of me, and said: "Ah, young firefly, how are you? Isn't this a game? That old Lady Bull who got you such a drubbing yesterday, is in a pretty mess. Her thirty-second pup has just tumbled into the water, and will certainly be drowned. Isn't she making a ...
— The Adventures of a Dog, and a Good Dog Too • Alfred Elwes

... called, with stoical dignity and forbearance, but in spite of all good resolutions, they had an effect upon the inner man. Like the good Maritornes when Sancho Panza mistook her for an evil spirit, he endured the drubbing as long as flesh-and-blood would stand it, and then retaliated in good earnest. It was discovered at length, that Wendell Phillips had a sharp tongue, as well as a silver one, and could use it also with some temper. Of course he was blamed for this, and very few considered what ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns

... staring him in the face; "O my lord, let me go and I will relate to thee the truth and the whole tale." So Kamar al-Zaman pulled him up out of the well, all but dead for suffering, what with cold and the pain of dipping and dousing, drubbing and dread of drowning. He shook like cane in hurricane, his teeth were clenched as by cramp and his clothes were drenched and his body befouled and torn by the rough sides of the well: briefly he was in a sad pickle. Now when Kamar al-Zaman saw him in ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton

... your exterior. I recommend you these mortifying reflections for your leisure; and, in the meantime, let me beseech you to rid us of your presence. If I were not occupied," added the Dictator, with a terrifying oath, "I should give you the unholiest drubbing ere you went!" ...
— New Arabian Nights • Robert Louis Stevenson

... praying; a symbol so sacred, that it effectually prevents any one from violating the secrecy of their devotion; but should he forget this signal, and at the same time be distant from the protection of his brethren, a sound drubbing is frequently the reward of his pious endeavors. But though they venture sometimes in Hindostan, to treat a Fakier in this unholy manner, in other parts of Asia and Africa, such is the veneration in which these lusty saints are held, that they not only have access when they please, to perform ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous

... dozen spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels whom he faced paused but long enough to see that this newly arrived champion had only his bare hands, and was, by token of his dress, undoubtedly their inferior, before setting upon him with drunken laughter and the loudly avowed purpose of administering a drubbing. The one that came first he sent rolling to the floor. "Another ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston

... which our race has come has left its mark in our love of combat. The pugnacity of children, especially of boys, is not so much to be deprecated and suppressed as guided into right lines and rendered subject to right ideals. The boy who picks a quarrel has been done a kindness when given a drubbing that will check this tendency. On the other hand, one who risks battle in defense of a weaker comrade does no ignoble thing. Children need very early to be taught the baseness of fighting for the sake of conflict, and the glory of going down to defeat fighting in ...
— The Mind and Its Education • George Herbert Betts

... people passed by him, one after another, he observed, not without surprise, that the two fetishmen, M'Kunje and M'Pua—the same who had received a drubbing at Kali's hands—belonged to the caravan and that they set out with packs on their heads together with the ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz

... more stanzas the son convinced his father that he was about to commit a great crime. The father, penitent, seated himself in the cart with his son and the old man, and they returned home. There the husband gave the wicked wife a sound drubbing, bundled her heels over head out of the house, and bade her never darken his doors again. [The rest of the story, which has no connection with ours, tells how the little son by a trick made his mother repent and become a good woman, and brought ...
— Filipino Popular Tales • Dean S. Fansler

... peirastic were, to represent a skirmish, or trial of proficiency; the endeietic were, it seems, likened to the exhibiting a specimen of skill; and the anatreptic, to presenting the spectacle of a thorough defeat, or sound drubbing. The principal reason why we contented not ourselves with this account of the difference between the dialogues of Plato, was the capital error there committed in the first subdivision, of course extending itself through the latter. This error consists ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor

... for me. My riding-switch lay handy, and I snatched it up. Before he knew what I would be at, I fell upon him, and gave him such a sound wholesome drubbing as speedily brought him to his senses. When he cried for mercy—which he did not for a good space, being still possessed by the peevish devil which had ridden him ever since his departure from Rosny—I put it to him again ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman

... grave offence of fighting I never heard another word about the incident. It is evident that the officer in his own mind concluded that the less he said about the episode the better. Still I had got satisfaction. I had given one of our enemies a drubbing which he would not forget in ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... dependance of savage women makes them eager to please their husbands (121); and this eagerness would naturally be doubled by making widowhood forbidding. Bruhier wrote, in 1743, that in Corsica it was customary, in case a man died, for the women to fall upon his widow and give her a sound drubbing. This custom, he adds significantly, "prompted the women to take ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck

... mien, His master patted on the chin, The action gracing with a word— The fondest bray that e'er was heard! Oh, such caressing was there ever? Or melody with such a quaver? "Ho! Martin! here! a club, a club bring!" Out cried the master, sore offended. So Martin gave the Ass a drubbing— And ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various

... him a sound drubbing, but for the old surgeon, who held the arm of the first sailor who made the attack. Then, continuing ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau

... you, but I want you to keep your mouth closed as far as I am concerned. If you try to circulate any more lies about me, I shall forget that you are a whining cur, without a spark of courage in your whole body, and I shall give you the drubbing you deserve." ...
— Frank Merriwell's Cruise • Burt L. Standish

... to go abroad that very day and found these two sleeping at the gate, covered with one veil; whereupon, 'By Allah,' said he, 'this is fine! These two know not that the Khalif has given me leave to kill any one whom I may catch at the door of the garden: but I will give them a sound drubbing, that none may come near the gate in future.' So he cut a green palm-stick and went out to them and raising his arm, till the whiteness of his armpit appeared, was about to lay on to them, when he bethought himself and said, 'O Ibrahim, wilt thou beat them, knowing not their case? Maybe they are ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume I • Anonymous

... that Mr. Fielding repaired to the place of assignation, where he received, in the shape of a hearty drubbing, the kind favours intended for me? The story was now left for me to tell, not for the Lady Hasselton; and that makes all the difference in the manner a story is told,—me narrante, it is de te fabula ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... thought, and being now safely beyond close observers, I turned upon the animal to give it a hearty drubbing with my stick, but it drew quickly off, as if divining my intention, and when I hurled the stick at it, retrieved it, and brought it to me quite as if it forgave my hostility. Discovering at length that this method not only availed nothing but was bringing faces to neighbouring windows, ...
— Ruggles of Red Gap • Harry Leon Wilson

... and now, and I want everybody to hear me, that I'm going to ferret out the low sneak who put those brads in Bob Upton's shoes. When I do, he leaves this school or I do, and one of us will have reason to remember the drubbing ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster

... you awaken me sooner?" he exclaimed. "I deserve a good drubbing for leaving you alone here!" He saw fresh food on the table. "It's late—" ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... forty-two chests, and prepared to disappear as rapidly and as mysteriously as they had come. During the whole adventure only one man was hurt, who tried to secrete some of the tea about his person, and who was given a drubbing for his pains. The Mohawks {161} scattered and disappeared, washed their faces, rolled up their blankets, concealed their pistols and axes, and as many reputable Boston citizens returned to their homes. It is related that some of them on their way home passed by a house in which Admiral Montague ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy

... Taxation no Tyranny: and after the intolerant spirit which he manifested against our fellow Christians of the Roman Catholick Communion, for which that able champion, Father O'Leary, has given him so hearty a drubbing. But I should think myself very unworthy, if I did not at the same time acknowledge Mr John Wesley's merit, as a veteran 'Soldier of Jesus Christ', who has, I do believe, 'turned many from darkness into light, and from the power of Satan to the living God'.] Robertson said, ...
— The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D. • James Boswell

... opulent countries which they made their prey—the unmolested Buccaneers found here that tranquillity which they fiercely denied to every civilized harbor in that part of the world. Here, after stress of weather, or a temporary drubbing at the hands of their vindictive foes, or in swift flight with golden booty, those old marauders came, and lay snugly out of all harm's reach. But not only was the place a harbor of safety, and a bower of ease, but for utility in other things ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville

... lashings which held the bowsprit of the French ship to the mizzen rigging giving way, she began to forge ahead. As she did so, a fortunate shot cut away the gammoning of her bowsprit. We were now exchanging broadsides yardarm to yardarm, but the drubbing they had already received seemed to dishearten the Frenchmen. Still they held out, showing a wonderful amount of pluck. They had sent men into the tops, armed with muskets, who were firing down on our deck, ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... but to challenge him to a fight on the next shore they came to with pistol and sword. On reaching land the cowardly boatswain refused to go ashore or to fight, whereupon the captain took his cane and gave him a hearty drubbing, when the boatswain, all of a sudden drawing a pistol, shot Evans through the head, so that he fell down dead. Thus was brought to a tragic and sudden end a career that showed early signs of great promise. The boatswain jumped overboard ...
— The Pirates' Who's Who - Giving Particulars Of The Lives and Deaths Of The Pirates And Buccaneers • Philip Gosse

... on apace, and just before its arrival a notorious weekly in New York gave the lady a drubbing. Certain circumstances that made her first marriage unhappy were plainly hinted at. The town shuddered with amazement. Cub stood pat, but the Episcopal minister refused to marry them. The Baptist minister balked. It looked like a postponement, but the ...
— 'Charge It' - Keeping Up With Harry • Irving Bacheller

... are not a rebel," the soldier was saying, "you can't make me believe that; you've got too honest a face to be a rebel. Now, just confess you are glad of the drubbing our boys gave ...
— That Old-Time Child, Roberta • Sophie Fox Sea

... moment, symbolist, poet, and also shockingly frank at times. Take the plate with a pun for a title, Le paing quotidien ("paing" is slang for "poing," a blow from the fist, and may also mean the daily bread). A masculine brute is with clinched fist about to give his unfortunate partner her daily drubbing. He is well dressed. His silk hat is shiny, his mustache curled in the true Adolphe fashion. His face is vile. The woman cries aloud and protects herself with her hands. In Marthe Baraquin, by Rosny senior, you will find the material for this picture, though ...
— Promenades of an Impressionist • James Huneker

... cut his head on the pavement: "O, never mind it!" said an Englishman who happened to be passing by. When I had my trunk fetched from the ship in a boat, the waterman rowed among the boats, and his boy, who stood at the head of his boat, got a sound drubbing, because the others would not let him pass: "O, never mind it!" said the old one, ...
— Travels in England in 1782 • Charles P. Moritz

... slightest idea that I knew any thing of the matter. Notwithstanding this, there was sometimes an insinuation thrown out, which rendered my life very miserable; and Best, the boy who had first accused me, although from the drubbing he got he was deterred from repeating the assertion, yet he would frequently ask in my hearing, "who stole Scott's money?" A month had nearly passed, and with most of the Boys the affair began to wear off, and it was seldom mentioned; not so ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt

... against one large involves more considerations than number and weight of guns. Unity of direction and thickness of sides—defensive strength, that is—enter into the problem. As Hawke said, "Big ships take a good deal of drubbing." Howe's opinion was the same as Nelson's; and Hardy, Nelson's captain, said, "After what I have seen at Trafalgar, I am satisfied it would be mere folly, and ought never to succeed."[74] What Hardy saw at Trafalgar, however, was not frigates against ships-of-the-line, but vessels of the latter ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan

... about, and looked wistfully the opposite way. I understand thee perfectly, answered I: if thou takest a wrong step in this affair he will cudgel thee to death. Well, a minute is but a minute, and if it saves a fellow-creature a drubbing, it shall not be set down as ill spent. He was eating the stem of an artichoke as this discourse went on, and, in the little peevish contentions of nature betwixt hunger and unsavouriness, had dropped it out of his mouth half a dozen times, and picked it up again. ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill

... likewise the children of employes of much less exalted rank, such as the sons of lodge-keepers, gardeners, game-keepers, etc., who all played and tumbled with the young princes on a footing of the most perfect equality, drubbing one another totally irrespective of rank. It is a pleasant thing to know that friendships thus formed subsist in after life; as an instance, when the kaiser's sister, now crown princess of Greece, sent to Germany ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy

... down his pen, and whistled a stave, drubbing his fingers on the table. Then he took ...
— Roger Ingleton, Minor • Talbot Baines Reed

... could a child like that carry away? Does not the whole forest belong to us Freibergers, and shall not our own children pick up a basketful of sticks while we are slaving here without pay? Give the fellow a sound drubbing! Down with him, if he does not pay for ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous

... reviewer, whose blundering intrepidity is only saved from the ridiculous by the honesty of his attempt, comes down on a nobler quarry, and thwacks the memory of Lord Camden as if he had been another Thersites. Sir Joseph Yates gets a sound drubbing from the same sturdy avenger of literary property, for his share in the celebrated case of Millar versus Taylor, as given in Burrow's Reports.[4] I have been pleased too with the succinct decision of a writer[5] who has produced an elaborate work on political ethics, in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various

... Those sable performers, far from taking the hint, and withdrawing, treated the messenger with great insolence; bidding him carry his compliments to their master, colonel Rigworm, who would give him a proper answer, and a good drubbing into the bargain; in the mean time they continued their noise, and even endeavoured to make it more disagreeable; laughing between whiles, at the thoughts of being able to torment their betters with impunity. Our 'squire, incensed at the additional insult, immediately dispatched the servant, ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett

... British island with a British garrison in it, like Gibraltar; the English newspapers came last week. I see those wretched French cannot let us alone, they want to go to war; well, let them; they richly deserve a good drubbing. The people here are very kind in their way, but home is home, especially such a one as mine, with true hearts to welcome me. Oh, I was so glad to get your letters; they were rather of a distant date, it is true, but they quite revived ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter

... tricks. Presently, in the fortunes of the game, one boy—a little more blundering or a little less disguised than the others—lays himself open to the accusations of the whole crew. They all fall upon him, and give him a good drubbing; and even some of them say they are punishing him for his good! When shall we make an end, once for ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter

... held as captives, he contented himself with the renewal of the Cheyennes' agreement to come in to Camp Supply. In due time the entire tribe fulfilled its promise except one small band under "Tall Bull," but this party received a good drubbing from General Carr on the Republican early in May. After this fight all the Indians of the southern Plains settled down on their reservations, and I doubt whether the peace would ever again have been broken had they not ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... will be able to give a good account of yourself if he tries to do anything of the sort. Let me say right here, though you need not tell your friend so that I think Teddy did just right, and I am glad you gave Larry a good drubbing. But, of course, we can't encourage this sort of thing with the show. It has to be put down ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... silence. "All of a sudden she seemed to realize that she was giving them a drubbing instead of a gentle rebuke. She hauled in her sails and stood winking at them behind her huge spectacles, while they all sat staring at her. It was a picture, I can tell you. Then dear old Farrer cleared his throat in that nervous way ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther

... place, Monsieur, I should pay some strapping fellow from the market-place to go and give him a drubbing." ...
— Sentimental Education, Volume II - The History of a Young Man • Gustave Flaubert

... Feb. 2.—The result of the election (Nov. 8) was rather shocking, but not unexpected. I think the Republicans deserved the drubbing. A hundred and ninety thousand of them, in New York, did not vote; so to punish somebody for something, they let ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various



Words linked to "Drubbing" :   flogging, corporal punishment, drub, tanning, defeat, flagellation, lashing



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