Dictionary
Words, grammatical forms and meanings linked to the ontology.
kiss the gunner's daughter en · VERB
Pronunciation
Meanings
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(archaic, idiomatic) To be flogged or beaten while restrained over a cannon.
But I was punished, my lad—made to kiss the wench that never speaks but when she scolds, and that's the gunner's daughter, comrade.
1824, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 14, in Redgauntlet:"No," replied Bosun Thorpe, "for any breaches of discipline by boy seamen are dealt within by making him, in naval jargon, ‘kiss the gunner's daughter’. . . . he bends over one of the guns; then he is lashed across the backside."
2002, Wallace Bruce, John Paul Jones: Father of the United States Navy, →ISBN, page 81:
Forms
Synonyms
marry the gunner's daughter