tawse
9.9
A leather strap once used to hit students as punishment in schools
- noun
- /tɔːz/
- NSFW
:
tawse
- The sound of the tawse striking the desk made the students quiet down immediately.
Examples
-
Students in old Scottish schools often feared the tawse more than the lesson itself.
-
In 1920, Tawse reported a patient with a unilateral supernumerary nostril that communicated with the nasal cavity.
Academic text (2005) -
In the classroom, the teacher used a tawse as a punishment for misbehavior.
Synonyms
29
7.7
A long thin stick used to punish someone at school
is a leather strap used in schools rather than a wooden stick
13
7.2
A strip of leather for beating someone as punishment
is the Scottish school instrument split at one end for corporal punishment
thong
vstawse
6
7.4
A narrow leather strip used for tying or fastening things
is split and used for corporal punishment in Scottish schools
lash
vstawse
4
6.3
The flexible leather strip at the end of a whip
is a split leather instrument used in schools, not only a whip end
9.9
A heavy whip used in Russia long ago to punish prisoners
is a light leather instrument for school discipline, not a heavy prison whip
Surface Forms
Etymology
The word tawse comes from an old Scots word taws meaning 'leather strap' used for punishment. A tawse was the split leather strap teachers used to discipline students, so the word is the name for that tool.