frogmarch
[frog-mahrch, frawg-]
- to force (a person) to march with the arms pinioned firmly behind the back.
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Origin of frogmarch
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
frogmarch
- a method of carrying a resisting person in which each limb is held by one person and the victim is carried horizontally and face downwards
- any method of making a resisting person move forward against his will
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- (tr) to carry in a frogmarch or cause to move forward unwillingly
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Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for frog march
also frog-march, 1871, a term that originated among London police and referred to their method of moving "a drunken or refractory prisoner" by carrying him face-down between four people, each holding a limb; the connection with frog (n.1) perhaps being the notion of going along belly-down. By the 1930s, the verb was used in reference to the much more efficient (but less frog-like) method of getting someone in an arm-behind-the-back hold and hustling him or her along like that.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper