Word.ws English Dictionary

lickings

lickings is the plural of licking.

Meaning of licking

Noun

licking (countable and uncountable, plural lickings)

  1. The act by which something is licked.
  2. (informal) A severe beating.
    • I have never minded a licking and have never asked for anything more than a fighting chance. But to have to give away five stone in weight and six inches in height was not my idea of a fair go.1933, Frank Clune, Try Anything Once, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 85
  3. (informal) A great loss or defeat.
    • Our football team took a licking last night.

Questions about lickings

What is lickings the plural of?
Lickings is the plural of licking.

Words near lickings in the dictionary

  1. licking someone's boots
  2. licking the birse
  3. licking the dust
  4. licking the pants off
  5. licking up
  6. lickings
  7. lickity
  8. lickjob
  9. lickjobs
  10. lickle
  11. lickometer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: lickings (page history and authors); licking (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: “lickings.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/lickings. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.