Word.ws English Dictionary

keelhauled

keelhauled is the simple past and past participle of keelhaul.

Meaning of keelhaul

Verb

keelhaul (third-person singular simple present keelhauls, present participle keelhauling, simple past and past participle keelhauled)

  1. (transitive) To punish by dragging under the keel of a ship with the intent of causing painful injuries.
    • March 11 [1667].—Hermans Jans, boatswain; disobedience of orders and stabbing his captain; sentenced to be degraded to common seaman, to be thrice keelhauled, to be well flogged, to have the knife stuck through his hand, and to forfeit, pro fisco, 6 months' wages.1838, D[onald] Moodie, comp., transl. and ed., “Abstract of Criminal Convictions before the Court of Justice, Cape of Good Hope.—1662–1672.”, in The Record; or, A Series of Official Papers Relative...
  2. (transitive) To rebuke harshly.
    • I've done these inquiries myself, Col. The top people can always put up such a bloody fine brick wall for themselves that no outsider has a chance of getting over or seeing through. But the same wall may stop some nonentity making his getaway, and he's the one the inquiry keelhauls.1988, Bill James, Protection, London: Constable & Co., →ISBN

Questions about keelhauled

What is keelhauled the simple past and past participle of?
Keelhauled is the simple past and past participle of keelhaul.

Words near keelhauled in the dictionary

  1. keelhale
  2. keelhaled
  3. keelhales
  4. keelhaling
  5. keelhaul
  6. keelhauled
  7. keelhauling
  8. keelhaulings
  9. keelhauls
  10. keelie
  11. keelies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: keelhauled (page history and authors); keelhaul (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “keelhauled.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keelhauled. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.