Where did the word flagellate come from?
Score: 4.8/5 (31 votes) "long, lash-like appendage," 1837, from Latin flagellum "whip, scourge," also figurative, diminutive of flagrum "a whip," from PIE root *bhlag- "to strike" (source also of Latin. flail (v.) mid-15c., "to whip, scourge," from flail (n.). Sense of "to move like a flail" is from...