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An ancient mode of punishing criminals among the Persians, by confining the victim in a trough, with his head and limbs smeared with honey or the like, and exposed to the sun and to insects until he died.

A lash; a strap or cord; especially, a lash used to inflict pain or punishment; an instrument of punishment or discipline; a whip. Up to coach then goes The observed maid, takes both the scourge and reins. Chapman.

One who scourges or punishes; one who afflicts severely. The West must own the scourger of the world. Byron.

To pass or pronounce judgment upon; to doom; to condemn to punishment; to prescribe the punishment of. Nature herself is sentenced in your doom. Dryden.

r succeeds as an effect; sequel; consequence; result. The inevitable sequences of sin and punishment. Bp. Hall.

To pass or spend, as time, esp. time of punishment; as, to serve a term in prison.

line, or government; harsh; not mild or indulgent; rigorous; as, severe criticism; severe punishment. "Custody severe." Milton. Come! you are too severe a moraler. Shak. Let your zeal, if it must be expressed in anger, be always more severe against thyself than against others. Jer. Taylor.

Harshness; cruel treatment; sharpness of punishment; as, severity practiced on prisoners of war.

Free from charge or expense; hence, unpunished; scot-free. [Obs.] Shak.

To afflict; to chasten; to punish. Let us not mistake God's goodness, nor imagine, because he smites us, that we are forsaken by him. Wake.

To suffer severely; to be punished. Some of you shall smoke for it in Rome. Shak.

ity; sociology. It concerns itself with questions of the public health, education, labor, punishment of crime, reformation of criminals, and the like. -- Social whale (Zoöl.), the blackfish. -- The social evil, prostitution.

he native and total depravity of man, the vicarious atonement, and the eternity of future punishment. His theory was, that Christ was a man divinely commissioned, who had no existence before he was conceived by the Virgin Mary; that human sin was the imitation of Adam's sin, and that human salvation was the imitation a…

To preserve from danger or punishment; to forbear to punish, injure, or harm; to show mercy to. Spare us, good Lord. Book of Common Prayer. Dim sadness did not spare That time celestial visages. Milton. Man alone can whom he conquers spare. Waller.

1. To place in a spread-eagle position, especially as a means of punishment. 2. being in a position with the arms and legs extended fully.

To break silence or secrecy for fear of pain or punishment; to speak; to confess. [Colloq.] If he be obstinate, put a civil question to him upon the rack, and he squeaks, I warrant him. Dryden.

ay make a present blaze. Waller. The making and selling of fireworks, and squibs . . . is punishable. Blackstone.

er Bar. -- To ride the stang, to be carried on a pole on men's shoulders. This method of punishing wife beaters, etc., was once in vogue in some parts of England.

torious profligate or criminal who has been branded; one who bears the marks of infamy or punishment. [R.] Bullokar.

s in which the feet, or the feet and hands, of criminals were formerly confined by way of punishment. He shall rest in my stocks. Piers Plowman.