Bastinadoing

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. Punishing someone by striking the soles of their bare feet with a stick or cane, a method once used in various parts of the world
2. Caning the bottoms of the feet as a form of corporal punishment, traditionally inflicted on prisoners or servants as discipline
3. Administering a severe beating to the underside of the feet with a rod, a painful form of physical correction practised historically

Etymology: "Bastinadoing" is the present participle and gerund of "bastinado", a verb for beating someone's bare feet with a stick. The base word came into English from Spanish "bastonada", which is related to French "bastonnade", and both trace back to "baston", a Spanish word meaning a stick or staff. The Spanish term was itself a derivative of that stick word, so the name describes the weapon and the method together: a blow from a cudgel, aimed at the soles. The practice it names is older and more specific than the word's general sense of hitting. Beating the feet with a stick was a punishment that left the victim unable to walk for days while causing considerable pain, and the verb preserves that narrow target. Because the word carries its Spanish and French origin in its shape, it reads as a foreign import even to speakers who have never seen it used.

Synonyms: beating, caning, flogging