Dictionary

salt eel en · NOUN

Meanings

1. An end piece of a rope cut off to be used as a whip.
   • Up betimes, and with my salt eel went down in the parler and there got my boy and did beat him till I was fain to take breath two or three times … April 24, 1663, Samuel Pepys, Diary of Samuel Pepys
   • You mistress Jones, I'll break your bones If thus you mutiny. Here's a salt eel, which you soon shall feel, Unless you soon agree. c. 1694, Henry Purcell, Edward Ravenscroft, “Good neighbour, why?”, in The Canterbury Guests; or, A Bargain, Broken, [Act III, scene v]:
2. (broadly) A punishment by whipping.

Forms