thrash

[thrash] /θræʃ/
verb (used with object)
1.
to beat soundly in punishment; flog.
2.
to defeat thoroughly:
The home team thrashed the visitors.
3.
Nautical. to force (a close-hauled sailing ship under heavy canvas) against a strong wind or sea.
4.
thresh.
verb (used without object)
5.
to toss, or plunge about.
6.
Nautical. to make way against the wind, tide, etc.; beat.
7.
thresh.
noun
8.
an act or instance of thrashing; beating; blow.
9.
thresh.
10.
Swimming. the upward and downward movement of the legs, as in the crawl.
11.
British Slang. a party, usually with drinks.
Verb phrases
12.
thrash out/over, to talk over thoroughly and vigorously in order to reach a decision, conclusion, or understanding; discuss exhaustively.
Also, thresh out/over.
Origin
before 900; Middle English thrasshen, variant of thresshen to thresh
Related forms
unthrashed, adjective
well-thrashed, adjective
Can be confused
thrash, thresh.
Synonyms
1. maul, drub. See beat.
Examples from the web for thrash
  • Once in a while they would bump into each other and thrash around.
  • Native people, loggers, and environmentalists sat down to help thrash out a plan for the other half.
  • They are workers with quotas and bosses who equip them to thrash online trolls, gnomes and ogres.
  • He carefully lifted the fish out of the creek, let it thrash about, then lowered the line and returned the fish to the water.
  • They thrash around violently and are often not aware of their surroundings.
  • They have an equally convincing way with bruising thrash punk, one-chord-vamp heroics and brooding atmospherics.
  • It's a palace of thrash, with as many gnarly facets as the best skate parks.
  • To be fair, they should play other thrash metal bands to see which one is best liked by tamarins.
  • Their goal was to thrash out a way to make different, isolated computer networks talk to each other.
  • The scarf it wore did not hamper the beast's progress, the regular thrash of its legs.
British Dictionary definitions for thrash

thrash

/θræʃ/
verb
1.
(transitive) to beat soundly, as with a whip or stick
2.
(transitive) to defeat totally; overwhelm
3.
(intransitive) to beat or plunge about in a wild manner
4.
(intransitive) to move the legs up and down in the water, as in certain swimming strokes
5.
to sail (a boat) against the wind or tide or (of a boat) to sail in this way
6.
another word for thresh
noun
7.
the act of thrashing; blow; beating
8.
(informal) a party or similar social gathering
See also thrash out
Word Origin
Old English threscan; related to Old High German dreskan, Old Norse thriskja
Word Origin and History for thrash
v.

1580s, "to separate grains from wheat, etc., by beating," dialectal variant of threshen (see thresh). Sense of "beat (someone) with (or as if with) a flail" is first recorded c.1600. Meaning "to make wild movements like those of a flail or whip" is attested from 1846. Related: Thrashed; thrashing. Type of fast heavy metal music first called by this name 1982.

thrash in Technology


To move wildly or violently, without accomplishing anything useful. Paging or swapping systems that are overloaded waste most of their time moving data into and out of core (rather than performing useful computation) and are therefore said to thrash. Thrashing can also occur in a cache due to cache conflict or in a multiprocessor (see ping-pong).
Someone who keeps changing his mind (especially about what to work on next) is said to be thrashing. A person frantically trying to execute too many tasks at once (and not spending enough time on any single task) may also be described as thrashing.
Compare multitask.
[Jargon File]