1793, verbal noun from flog (v.). Earlier in the same sense was floggation (1680s).

1670s, slang, of uncertain origin. Perhaps a schoolboy shortening of Latin flagellare "flagellate" (see flagellum); Century Dictionary suggests perhaps from a Low German word "of homely use, of which the early traces have disappeared." OED finds it presumably onomatopoeic. Figurative use from 1800. Related: Flogged; flogging.

"a beating, flogging," c. 1400, verbal noun from lash (v.1).

"a flogging," 1809, from hide (n.1), perhaps in reference to a whip or thong made of animal hide, or of "tanning" someone's "hide." Old English had hyde ðolian "to undergo a flogging," and hydgild "fine paid to save one's skin (from a punishment by flogging)." The English expression a hiding to nothing (by 1905) referred to a situation where there was disgrace in defeat and no honor in victory.

"to flog," 1830, from the noun in the sense "bunch of birch twigs used for flogging" (1640s); see birch (n.). Related: Birched; birching.

early 15c., "the scourging of Christ," from Old French flagellacion "scourging, flogging," or directly from Latin flagellationem (nominative flagellatio) "a scourging," noun of action from past-participle stem of flagellare "to scourge, lash" (see flagellum). In a general sense from 1520s.

c. 1300, las "a blow, a stroke," later "flexible part of a whip" (late 14c.), possibly imitative; compare lash (v.1), which might be the immediate source of this. Century Dictionary says Irish lasg "a lash, whip, whipping" is of English origin. The lash "punishment by flogging" is from 1690s.

"rod or flat piece of wood for punishing children," 1590s, earlier "giant fennel" (early 15c.), from Middle English ferula "fennel plant" (late 14c.), from Latin ferula "reed, whip, rod, staff; fennel plant or stalk" (fennel stalks were used for administering flogging punishment in ancient Roman times) probably related to festuca "stalk, straw, rod."

1835, "inflict severe (but not deliberately fatal) bodily punishment (on someone) without legal sanction," from earlier Lynch law (1811), in reference to such activity, which was likely named after William Lynch (1742-1820) of Pittsylvania, Virginia, who c. 1780 led a vigilance committee to keep order there during the Revolution. Other sources trace the name to Charles Lynch (1736-1796) a Virginia magistrate who fined and imprisoned Tories in his district c. 1782, but the connection to him is less likely. The surname is perhaps from Irish Loingseach "sailor."

It implies lawless concert or action among a number of members of the community, to supply the want of criminal justice or to anticipate its delays, or to inflict a penalty demanded by public opinion, though in defiance of the laws. [Century Dictionary, 1895]

Originally any sort of summary justice, done without authority of law, for a crime or public offense; it especially referred to flogging or tarring-and-feathering. At first the act was associated with frontier regions (as in the above citation), though from c. 1835 to the U.S. Civil War it also often was directed against abolitionists. The narrowing of the meaning to "extra-legal execution by hanging" is evident by the 1880s, and after c. 1893 lynching mostly meant killings of blacks by white mobs (especially in retaliation for alleged sexual assaults of white women). This shift in use seems due in part to the work of African-American journalist and activist Ida B. Wells. Lynch mob is attested from 1838. Compare earlier Lydford law, from a place in Dartmoor, England, "where was held a Stannaries Court of summary jurisdiction" [Weekley], hence:

Lydford law: is to hang men first, and indite them afterwards. [Thomas Blount, "Glossographia," 1656]

Also in a similar sense was Jedburgh justice (1706) and, as a verb, to Dewitt (1680s), a reference to two Dutch statesmen of that name, opponents of William of Orange, murdered by a mob in 1672. Related: Lynched; lynching. The city of Lynchburg, Virginia, dates to the 1750s when John Lynch, brother to Charles but a peaceable Quaker, had a ferry landing on the James River there.