keelhaul
Americanverb (used with object)
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Nautical. to haul (an offender) under the bottom of a ship and up on the other side as a punishment.
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to rebuke severely.
verb
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to drag (a person) by a rope from one side of a vessel to the other through the water under the keel
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to rebuke harshly
Etymology
Origin of keelhaul
From the Dutch word kielhalen, dating back to 1660–70. See keel 1, haul
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.
In a poem called “Gift Horses” he notes how “the Devil is commissioned/to harm, to keelhaul us with loss, with knowledge/of how all things splendid are disfigured by small/and small.”
From New York Times • Mar. 13, 2012
When his father orders a second voyage, Chris does not tell the old man to go keelhaul himself, and then leave home, penniless, to write music.
From Time Magazine Archive
Unlike Salinger, Tina isn't out to keelhaul her father, at least not consciously.
From Time Magazine Archive
“I’d give a year’s pay to be safe on board the Yorktown agin, keelhaul me if I wouldn’t!”
From The Campaign of the Jungle or, Under Lawton through Luzon by Stratemeyer, Edward
“Well, then, as I’ve been thinking, suppose I come ashore with yer and follers yer right up to the captain, and lie close by when he begins to sort o’ keelhaul yer?”
From The Lost Middy Being the Secret of the Smugglers' Gap by Wood, Stanley L.
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.
