bastinado
Americannoun
-
a mode of punishment consisting of blows with a stick on the soles of the feet or on the buttocks.
-
a blow or a beating with a stick, cudgel, etc.
-
a stick or cudgel.
verb (used with object)
noun
-
punishment or torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with a stick
-
a blow or beating with a stick
-
a stick; cudgel
verb
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of bastinado
1570–80; earlier bastanado < Spanish bastonada ( bastón stick ( see baton) + -ada -ade 1 )
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
They did this, wonderful to tell, without riots of protest or direct coercion of the bastinado or bayonet kind.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
The feat for which the National Committee commended him proved him to be a very knout and bastinado.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Just at the third milestone I felt a shock on the soles of my feet as if I had been receiving the bastinado.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. by Various
"Judge how much your bastinado can affect me," he said, with superb disdain.
From Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series by Hemyng, Bracebridge
“But your highness will probably be tired; and as I have now told how it was that I suffered the bastinado, you will perhaps wait till to-morrow for the history of the bowstring.”
From The Pacha of Many Tales by Marryat, Frederick
Brother Northcutt turns out his masked inquisitors, and Nessie not being found, the bastinadoes of righteousness descend upon Abner when he returns to marry the girl.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
And further, he may regale us with tales of hair shirts and bastinadoes suffered by him in the Republic.
From Nonsenseorship by Putnam, G. G.
As a reprisal for this disturbance, the Austrian Government, not content with executions and bastinadoes, decreed the sequestration of the lands of those Lombard emigrants who had become naturalised in Piedmont.
From Cavour by Martinengo-Cesaresco, Countess Evelyn
Having no straps, the solid sole of the sandal flaps up and mildly bastinadoes the wearer every step that is taken.
From Around the World on a Bicycle - Volume II From Teheran To Yokohama by Stevens, Thomas
Hour after hour the hard clay road bastinadoed their blistering feet.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
The Maghrabis, but for our interference, would have bastinadoed the Rais, who, they said with some reason, ought to have known better.
From Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah & Meccah — Volume 1 by Burton, Richard Francis, Sir
But he was the Hhaha Sheikh, and the Shedma Sheikh complained to the Governor of his man having been bastinadoed by the other Sheikh.
From Travels in Morocco, Volume 1. by Richardson, James
And so rotten is society,—so prostrate does it cower before the golden calf— that the buccaneer, instead of being bastinadoed or beheaded, is crowned with bays!
From Brann the Iconoclast — Volume 01 by Brann, William Cowper
May I be bastinadoed if it hasn't been three months since my eyes beheld the last specimen!
From When Wilderness Was King A Tale of the Illinois Country by Parrish, Randall
To keep fit he put in 20 minutes a day bastinadoing a dummy with a bamboo sword, until influenza laid him low last winter and politicians forced his resignation as War Minister.
From Time Magazine Archive
![]()
Generally a man is never more uselessly employed than when he is at this trick of bastinadoing asses' hide.
From The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 1 (of 25) by Lang, Andrew
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.