- present participle of lick.
licking
Americannoun
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lickings
plural
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Informal.
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a beating or thrashing.
-
a reversal or disappointment; defeat or setback.
-
-
the act of a person or thing that licks.
noun
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a beating
-
a defeat
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of licking
Middle English word dating back to 1350–1400; see origin at lick, -ing 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:
And, notably, they eat Cane’s, whether it’s buying entire orders of just Texas toast or dunking their entire hand into a fountain cup of Cane’s Sauce and licking it off their fingers.
From Slate ● Aug. 24, 2026
But instead of attacking, the smaller ants climb onto the bigger ones and begin licking and nibbling across their bodies.
From Science Daily ● Apr. 14, 2026
England will be licking their lips at the opportunity to bounce back against Ireland on Saturday.
From BBC ● Feb. 15, 2026
Lower rates would be welcome news for tech investors, who are still licking their wounds from the past week.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 9, 2026
“It’s sort of about the boys,” I admitted, licking salsa off my hand.
From "Maybe He Just Likes You" by Barbara Dee
After all the investments they had made into her business, she said they were left with the "lickings of a dog" and felt it was "a kick in the teeth".
From BBC ● Jan. 18, 2024
The G.O.P. had taken two good lickings in Philadelphia in 1951 and 1952, and was more or less resigned to another.
From Time Magazine Archive
Two years later, at the polls, it took one of the most surprising lickings in U.S. political history.
From Time Magazine Archive
For seven years the League plum has meant rich lickings to the Swiss city of Geneva.
From Time Magazine Archive
With new lickings and clickings he counted the notes all over again.
From The Price of Love by Arnold Bennett
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.
