keelhauling
Syllables: keel·haul·ingUK/ˈkiːlhɔːlɪŋ/US/ˈkiːlhɔlɪŋ/
keelhauling noun: the act by which a person is keelhauled. Also the present participle and gerund of keelhaul.
Noun
keelhauling (plural keelhaulings)
- The act by which a person is keelhauled.
- ‘We was a-talkin’ of keel-hauling,’ answered Morgan. / ‘Keel-hauling, was you? And a mighty suitable thing, too, and you may lay to that. Get back to your place for a lubber, Tom.’1883 November 14, Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island, London: Cassell and Company, →OCLC
- The British, French and Dutch navies also practiced a grimmer form of choking. Sailors hung the victim from the lowest beam (the yardarm) of the main mast on one side of the ship and then, using pulleys, dragged him with ropes beneath the ship's keel to the other side of the long beam. This was...2007, Darius Rejali, “Choking”, in Torture and Democracy, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, →ISBN, page 282
- A thorough thrashing or mauling; rough treatment.
Also used as
keelhauling is also the present participle and gerund of keelhaul.
Forms of keelhauling
| plural | keelhaulings |
|---|
Origin of keelhauling
From keelhaul + -ing.
Questions about keelhauling
- What does keelhauling mean?
- Keelhauling means the act by which a person is keelhauled.
- What part of speech is keelhauling?
- Keelhauling is a noun.
- How do you pronounce keelhauling?
- Keelhauling is pronounced /ˈkiːlhɔːlɪŋ/ (UK).
- What is the plural of keelhauling?
- The plural of keelhauling is keelhaulings.
Words near keelhauling in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: keelhauling (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.
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Cite this entry: “keelhauling.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/keelhauling. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.