flagellists

Noun

flagellist (plural flagellists)

1. One who administers punishment by whipping.
   • Keats, of the noted Eton school, was perhaps the best flagellist of this century, and it is said of him in Cooper's History of the Rod, that on one occasion, when a confirmation was to be held for the school, each master was requested to make out a list of candidates from his own form.1874, The Pennsylvania School Journal - Volume 23, page 74
2. One who whips him or herself as an act of religious penitence; flagellant.
   • The Christian flagellist might, it is probable, draw as much blood from his back in a year, as did the frantic priest of Moloch from his sides and arms ; or perhaps more ; but yet it were better done with the Scourge than with the Knife.1853, Isaac Taylor, Fanaticism, page 95
3. One who whips others or is whipped by others as a sexual fetish.
   • Then comes the next and the next until the sadist, the flagellist, the criminally insane demand their places, and society ceases to exist.1950, James Barr, Quatrefoil: a novel, page 310
4. One who is abusive or punishing.
   • No reasonable man dare gainsay that it is not the function of government to constitute itself as a flagellist for either side of the industrial problem.1961, Labor Law Journal - Volume 12, page 123