lashing

Noun

lashing (countable and uncountable, plural lashings)

1. Something used to tie something or lash it to something.
   • The lashings, which had been holding the chest to the deck of the storm-tossed ship, broke, and it went overboard.
2. The act of one who, or that which, lashes; castigation, chastisement.
   • the lashings out of his luxura. 1717 (date written), Robert South, “(please specify the sermon number)”, in Five Additional Volumes of Sermons Preached upon Several Occasions. […], volume (please specify |volume=VII to XI)...
3. The or an act of lashing; a heavy falling or downpour (of rain).
   • [It] came from the sea, that wind, and soon enough, it would bring lashings of rain. The captain opened the door just as the first patters of rain began to fall.(Can we date this quote?), Celine Jeanjean, The Veiled War: A Quirky Steampunk Fantasy Series, Celine Jeanjean
4. (Ireland, UK, in plural, informal) Lots; a great amount.
   • “[…] the awfully hearty sort of Christmas cards that people do send to other people that they don't know at all well. You know. The kind that have mottoes like
     Here's rattling good luck and roaring good cheer, / With lashings of food and great hogsheads of beer. […]”1921, Ben Travers, chapter 1, in A Cuckoo in the Nest, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Page & Company, published 1925, →OCLC
   • You bring happiness to my heart
     Like a freshly baked apple tart
     With lashings of piping-hot custard2017, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Bad Dad, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN