flagellistEtymologyFrom Latin flagellum (“whip”) + -ist.nounOne who administers punishment by whipping.“Keats, of the noted Eton school, was perhaps the best flagellist of this century, and it is said of him in Cooper's History of the Rod, that on one occasion, when a confirmation was to be held for the school, each master was requested to make out a list of candidates from his own form.”One who whips him or herself as an act of religious penitence; flagellant.“The Christian flagellist might, it is probable, draw as much blood from his back in a year, as did the frantic priest of Moloch from his sides and arms ; or perhaps more ; but yet it were better done with the Scourge than with the Knife.”One who whips others or is whipped by others as a sexual fetish.“Then comes the next and the next until the sadist, the flagellist, the criminally insane demand their places, and society ceases to exist.”One who is abusive or punishing.“No reasonable man dare gainsay that it is not the function of government to constitute itself as a flagellist for either side of the industrial problem.”