Knout n. A kind of whip for flogging criminals, formerly much used in Russia. The lash is a tapering bundle of leather thongs twisted with wire and hardened, so that it mangles the flesh.
... was little moved by desire for real reform or by pity for the peasants. She had the heavy whip—the knout—applied to the bared backs of earnest reformers. Her court was scandalously immoral, and she violated the conventions of matrimony without a qualm. For some excuse or another, the promised constitution was never written, and the lot of the serfs tended to become actually worse. To the governor ... — A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
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