LICKING • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Licking

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/lˈɪkɪŋ/ Listen

verb

Lick v. t. (past & past part. licked; pres. part. licking)

To draw or pass the tongue over; as, a dog licks his master's hand.

To lap; to take in with the tongue; as, a dog or cat licks milk.

To lick the dust, to be slain; to fall in battle. "His enemies shall lick the dust."

To lick into shape, to give proper form to; from a notion that the bear's cubs are born shapeless and subsequently formed by licking.

To lick the spittle of, to fawn upon.

To lick up, to take all of by licking; to devour; to consume entirely.

Lick v. t. To strike with repeated blows for punishment; to flog; to whip or conquer, as in a pugilistic encounter. (Colloq. or Low)

noun

Licking n.

A lapping with the tongue.

A flogging or castigation. (Colloq. or Low)

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Etymology of 'Licking'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Licking" Quotes from Famous Books

... fire till evening watching and tending Tartar, who lay all gory, stiff, and swelled on a mat at her feet. She wept furtively over him sometimes, and murmured the softest words of pity and endearment, in tones whose music the old, scarred, canine warrior acknowledged by licking her hand or her sandal alternately with his own red wounds. As to John, his lady turned a cold shoulder on him ...

— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte

... stamped its little hoof. "Insolence!" it squeaked. "You—you go back to France by the next boat!" and the Babe perceived to his horror that he had been witty to an Assistant Provost-Marshal! He flung himself down on his knees, licking the A.P.M.'s boots and crying in a loud voice that he would be good and never ...

— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 24, 1917 • Various

... take a licking, that wins in the end,' cried Weyburn; his former enthusiasm for the hero mounting, enlightened by a reminiscence of the precept he had hammered ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... gets a licking,—or gives it? But who was he, and what's this about his having been ...

— The Small House at Allington • Anthony Trollope

... the sense to respect it, and to await its being skinned. Now this morning their hunger was infernal; my servant was half dead and covered with blood. He was very inhuman toward them; they began, no doubt, by licking his wounds; then, as it is said the appetite increases with what it is fed on, this made the mouths of the poor brutes water. Finally, they did not leave a bone of my servant. Had it not been for the bite of a serpent which nipped sharply but which was not venomous, ...

— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue

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