flagellate
/ˈflæ.d͡ʒəˌleɪt/
flagellate means to whip or scourge. It carries an Arena rating of 1478, earned across 2 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, flagellate ranks #662 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #1,215 of 17,127 for Most Vivid Words, #1,534 of 17,143 for Best Fossil-Poetry Words, #2,621 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words.
flagellate is pronounced /ˈflæ.d͡ʒəˌleɪt/.
Why “flagellate” is a great word
To whip or scourge, literally or figuratively, by inflicting lashes upon the body or mind. From Latin flagellatus, past participle of flagellare ("to scourge, lash"), from flagellum ("a whip"). First attested as a verb in English c. 1620. Unlike “scourge,” which suggests divine wrath or widespread devastation, or “reprimand,” which denotes a formal, external rebuke, to flagellate is a sharper, more intimate violence. It is the monk’s knotted cord biting into his own shoulders, the writer’s pen turned against itself at three in the morning, or the sleepless mind rehearsing every failure in endless, looping playback—a private economy of suffering where the hand that holds the whip is often one’s own, as if pain administered from within might purify what the world has already spoiled.
Etymology
First attested in 1623; borrowed from Latin flagellātus perfect passive participle of flagellō (“to whip, flog”), see -ate (verb-forming suffix).
verb
- To whip or scourge.e.g.“Red welts rising from a flagellated back” — 1976 December 11, David Holland, “A Conversation With Maitresse”, in Gay Community News, volume 4, number 24, page 13:
- To harshly chide or chastise, to reprimand.
- Of a spermatozoon, to move its tail back and forth.e.g.“The gigantic egg sits, and the frantic and tiny sperm flagellates its tail to cross vast distances on its quest for dissolution in the huge egg.” — 1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 63:
adj
- Resembling a whip.
- Having flagella.
noun
- Any organism that has flagella.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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