Etymology

flog

F4L1O1G2

Today it means: To whip or scourge as punishment. Full definition →

Middle English *floggen ← Old English *floggian ← Proto-Germanic *flukkōną
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flog · verb, noun1

  1. Low German · borrowed fromflogger“a flail”
  2. Proto-Germanic · inherited from*flukkōną“to beat”
  3. Old English · inherited from*floggian
  4. Middle English · inherited from*floggen
  5. English todayflog

From Middle English *floggen (suggested by flogge (“hammer, sledge”), from Old English *floggian, a stem variant of Proto-Germanic *flukkōną (“to beat”), itself a secondary zero-grade iterative with unetymological -u-, derived from *flōkaną. The original zero-grade iterative *flakkōną had been misinterpreted as an o-grade. See flack (“to beat”), also as a dialectal noun "a blow, slap". Cognate with Scots flog (“a blow, stripe, flogging”, noun), Scots flog (“thin strip of wood”), Norwegian flak (“a piece torn off, strip”). Alternatively, a back-formation from flogger, from Low German flogger (“a flail”).

flog · noun2

Blend of fake + blog.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.