Dictionary

flagellative en · ADJ

Etymology

From flagellate + -ive.

Meanings

1. Pertaining to flagellation; flagellatory.
   • "I wanted the regular announcement of the blocks as they come along to have the whiplike quality of time," says the poetic dramatist, who as an author having his most complex play tried out for only three weeks prior to its Broadway opening is supremely conscious of the flagellative relentlessness of clock and calendar. 1986, Tennessee Williams, Albert J. Devlin, Conversations with Tennessee Williams, page 31:
   • He then minutely recounted the particulars of her enchantment, together with what he had seen in the cave of Montesinos, and the means prescribed by Merlin for her restoration, namely, Sancho's flagellative penance. 1774, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, The history of the renowned Don Quixote de la Mancha:
   • As we had no luggage to pack up, nor friends to take leave of, we began our journey that very evening; and after a tedious tramp, during which the captain practised a variety of knavish manoeuvres, by way of keeping his hand in (although I did all in my power to prevent him(, arrived in safety at the famous city of Edinburgh; where the first thing that saluted our sight, on entering the market-place, was a concourse of people running after a couple of men, who pased by us a swift as the wind; which made us conclude they were running for some great wager; byt my readers may easily judge our surprise, when we discovered two ropes (which at first trailing along the ground, prevented our seeing them sooner) pulled tight; by which means the two runners were stopped, and an ill-looking fellow, who held the ends of the two lines, coming up, gave each of them a couple of severe lashes with a wire whip; he then let them run on again to the full length of their tether, when he repeated the same flagellative discipline as before, and so on, vice versa, till they had run the gauntlet of the whole market-place. 1801, The Life and Singular Adventures of the Three Jacks of Rosemary Lane, page 23:

Forms