Bastinadoes

Part of speech: verb, noun

Definitions

1. Punishes someone by striking the soles of their feet with a stick or cane, a method once used in various countries
2. Caning the bottoms of the feet as a form of corporal punishment, especially in historical penal or disciplinary practice
3. Inflicts a beating on the soles of a person's feet with a rod, as a severe and painful form of physical discipline

Etymology: "Bastinadoes" is the third-person singular form of "bastinado," a verb meaning to beat someone on the soles of the feet with a stick or cane. The noun it comes from entered English from Spanish "bastonada," a word built on "baston," meaning a stick or staff, and the French "bastonnade" arrived by the same route. The punishment itself was far older than the word: the beating of the soles was a method of corporal punishment used in the Ottoman Empire and elsewhere in the Middle East, and the Spanish and French names simply describe the blow with the staff. The core idea is therefore plain and concrete. The word keeps the image of the stick at its center, with the Spanish suffix "-ada" turning the noun for a stick into the name of the beating delivered with it. In English, the noun became a verb, so that someone could be bastinadoed, or could bastinado another person, with the act itself named after the instrument.

Synonyms: beating, caning, flogging