Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun One who whips, especially one who scourges oneself for religious discipline or public penance.
- noun One who seeks sexual gratification in beating or being beaten by another person.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Given to flagellation, or the use of the rod; flagellating.
- noun One who whips or scourges himself for religious discipline; specifically, in history, one of a body of religious persons who believed they could thus appease the divine wrath against their sins and the sins of the age.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun (Eccl. Hist.) One of a fanatical sect which flourished in Europe in the 13th and 14th centuries, and maintained that flagellation was of equal virtue with baptism and the sacrament; -- called also
disciplinant .
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun One who practices
flagellating oneself, either forpenance . - noun A member of a religious order that preaches self-mortification as a means of
absolution .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a person who is whipped or whips himself for sexual gratification
- noun a person who whips himself as a religious penance
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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The ordinary registers are the low, the middle, the high voice, or head voice, and sometimes the second high voice, which has been called the flagellant voice.
Caruso and Tetrazzini on the Art of Singing Enrico Caruso 1897
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I don't mean to come off like a "flagellant" here, beating my breast for the shortcomings of my countrymen; you could just as easily say that "they" don't spend time with
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Noel Celis/AFP/Getty Images EASTER SACRIFICE: A flagellant whipped his back with bamboo during the re-enactment of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ in Manila Thursday.
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But let's not waste time in the flagellant posture of a seasoned intellectual, and adopt the erect stance of the rhetorician: nine out of ten nutso claims made about Palin were actually true.
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But let's not waste time in the flagellant posture of a seasoned intellectual, and adopt the erect stance of the rhetorician: nine out of ten nutso claims made about Palin were actually true.
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Only a three-chain flagellant is assured more misery.
We’re All Just Exiles Here, of Our Own Device « Exile on Ninth Street 2010
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Only a three-chain flagellant is assured more misery.
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Only a three-chain flagellant is assured more misery.
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Institutionalised public contrition as practiced (rightly) in Germany, or assiduously avoided by Japan, is not required of us, and certainly not as a sort of flagellant, anti-imperialist penance.
John Terry’s sacking as England captain tells us something interesting... 2009
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Endless, mindless, line-ups where nitwits pose puzzlers are a curious, American masochistic multi-flagellant, consonant with Yr. constant torture fetishes.
CNN Spokesman Confirms Network Chose "Diamonds And Pearls" Question 2009
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