keelhaul

[ keel-hawl ]

verb (used with object)

1. Nautical. to haul (an offender) under the bottom of a ship and up on the other side as a punishment.
2. to rebuke severely.

keelhaul

/ ˈkiːlˌhɔːl /

verb

1. to drag (a person) by a rope from one side of a vessel to the other through the water under the keel
2. to rebuke harshly

Word History and Origins

Origin of keelhaul¹

From the Dutch word kielhalen, dating back to 1660–70. See keel ¹, haul

Word History and Origins

Origin of keelhaul¹

C17: from Dutch kielhalen; see keel ¹, haul

Example Sentences

“When we’re moving again—if we ever are—you open your mouth, and I’ll keelhaul you!”

From Literature

On the web, I’m convinced that it’s more productive to produce and pass on helpful, positive ideas than to keelhaul people with harmful, negative ones.

From New York Times

Battleship It’ll keelhaul you till you're sober.

From Slate

In a poem called “Gift Horses” he notes how “the Devil is commissioned/to harm, to keelhaul us with loss, with knowledge/of how all things splendid are disfigured by small/and small.”

From New York Times

But I left out all such stuff, because I knew it would after all amount to nothing, if I should set it off against a quite different purgatory and tempest into which we male-kind particularly are thrown, if we are so unfortunate as to keelhaul ourselves, that is to say, fall in love, which in my poor opinion is a slight foretaste of hell, as well as of heaven.

From Project Gutenberg