thrashing
n.— Note: Perhaps related to the British noun “thrash,” which means “a party.” «Evidence gathered from the social networking site led proctors at the university to collect five times as much money this year over last for a practice known as “thrashing,” which involves graduating students celebrating their accomplishment by covering one another in champagne, foam, eggs, flour and other substances, The Times of London reported Friday.» —“Fines spike after Oxford uses Facebook” in Oxford, England United Press International Apr. 18, 2008. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
It was a dark and stormy night. So begins the long and increasingly convoluted prose of Edwards Bulwer-Lytton’s best-known novel. Today the annual Bulwer-Lytton Contest asks contestants for fanciful first sentences that are similarly...
Enthusiastic book recommendations! Martha’s savoring the biography of Alexander von Humboldt, the 19th-century explorer, polymath, and naturalist who revolutionized our understanding of nature and predicted the effects of human activity on...