punishment

the devil to pay Consequences to be suffered; a dear price to be paid; trouble, confusion, or a “fate worse than death” to be endured. The first and most convincing of the three possible origins of this expression is that it alludes to the alleged bargains made between the devil and an individual such as Faust, the chief character in a medieval legend who traded his soul for knowledge and power. Another popular explanation is that many London barristers mixed work and pleasure in an inn called the Devil Tavern in Fleet Street. Their excuse for working was that they had to pay the “Devil” for their drinks. Still other sources cite the significance of the nautical use of devil to pay and the longer devil to pay and no pitch hot The “devil” is a seam in a ship near the keel and “to pay” is to cover the seam with pitch. The difficulty of “paying the devil” is said to have given rise to the figurative uses of the devil to pay. This expression has been in print since the early 18th century. See also between the devil and the deep blue sea, PREDICAMENT.

get it in the neck To be reprimanded or disciplined; to be severely chastised; to bear the brunt. This expression has its origins in the punishment of decapitation, in which the guillotine’s blade cleaved off one’s head at the neck. Figuratively, the phrase usually refers to an undeserving victim of castigation or loss:

The expression is not limited in application to that which has a neck, even a figurative one:

get one’s lumps See ADVERSITY.

go to heaven in a wheelbarrow To be damned to eternal suffering; to go to hell. This obsolete expression has been traced to a window in Gloucestershire, England, depicting Satan wheeling away a termagant woman in a wheelbarrow.

See also go to hell in a handbasket, DEGENERATION.

heads will roll Those responsible will be held accountable; there’s trouble in the offing. This American slang expression is of fairly recent vintage, though it alludes to former times when beheading was common and heads literally did roll as a result of an enraged monarch’s fit of anger at his subjects’ incompetence, betrayal, or rebelliousness.

kiss the rod See SUBMISSIVENESS.

lower the boom To punish; to severely chastise or discipline; to prohibit. This expression originally described a nautical maneuver by which one of the ship’s booms was directed so as to knock an offending seaman overboard. The expression later developed into a prize fighting term for delivering a haymaker. In contemporary usage, the phrase is often applied to an activity which is abruptly terminated through anger or castigation.

pin [someone’s] ears back See REPRIMAND.

ride on a rail To punish severely, to chastise mercilessly; to subject to public abuse and scorn; to banish, ostracize, or exile; in the latter sense usually to ride out of town on a rail. It was formerly the practice to punish a wrongdoer by seating him astride a rail, or horizontal beam, and then carrying him about town as an object of derision. Often he was then taken to the village limits and warned not to set foot in the town again under pain of yet more severe punishment.

run the gauntlet See ADVERSITY.

send up the river To send to prison. This American expression originally referred to the incarceration of an offender at Sing Sing—a notorious correctional facility located up the Hudson River from New York City. The phrase has now been extended to include any imprisonment.

stand the gaff See ENDURANCE.

send to Coventry To ostracize or exclude from society because of objectionable behavior; to refuse to associate with, to ignore. Several explanations have been proposed as to the origin of this expression. The most plausible was put forth by Edward Hyde Clarendon in A History of the Rebellion and Civil Wars in England (1647). It stated that citizens of a town called Bromigham were in the habit of attacking small groups of the King’s men and either killing them or taking them prisoner and sending them to Coventry, then a Parliamentary stronghold. A less plausible explanation maintains that the inhabitants of Coventry so hated soldiers that any social intercourse with them was strictly forbidden. Thus, a soldier sent to Coventry was as good as cut off from all social relations for the duration of his stay.

take the bark off To flog or chastise, to give one a hiding. This 19th-century Americanism, implying a flogging or whipping so severe as to flay one’s skin, likens the skin on a person to the bark on a tree.

take the rap To accept or be given the responsibility and punishment for a crime, especially one committed by another; to take the blame. Although this expression apparently employs rap in its sense of ‘blame or punishment,’ one source suggests that the phrase may in fact be a corruption of the theatrical take the nap ‘to be dealt a feigned blow.’

Related expressions are bum rap ‘a frame-up; a conviction for a crime of which one is innocent,’ and beat the rap ‘to be acquitted or absolved of blame,’ usually with the implication that one is indeed guilty.

Rap itself is often used as a synonym for an arrest, a trial, or a jail sentence.

tar and feather To punish harshly or castigate severely. This expression is derived from the brutal punishment in which the victim was doused with hot tar and subsequently covered with feathers. In 1189, this form of chastisement received royal sanction in England. While it was never ordained as a legal penalty in the United States, it nevertheless became a form of punishment by the masses for a crime or misdoing which fell outside the realm of the law. It retains frequent hyperbolic use.

throw the book at To give a convicted criminal the maximum penalty or sentence; to prosecute on the most serious of several charges stemming from a single incident, especially when it would be possible to try a person on a lesser charge; to accuse of several crimes. This expression conjures images of a judge’s referring to a law book to compile a list of all possible wrongdoings of which a prisoner may be accused, or a list of the most severe penalties that may be assessed for the crime(s) of which a person has been convicted.