tawse

plural tawses · alternative taws

1. ScotlandA leather strap or thong which is split into (typically three) tails, used for corporal punishment in schools, applied to the palm of the hands or buttocks.

   I lay about me with the taws That night and morning I may thrash Greek Alexander from my flesh, […]

   1919 March, W[illiam] B[utler] Yeats, “The Saint and the Hunchback”, in The Wild Swans at Coole, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, →OCLC, pages 104–105

   1 more example

   [W]hile James Murray might punish a late comer by a stroke on the palm of the hand, the children found his lessons so interesting that he had no need to resort to the "tawse", the traditional leather strap, that descended on the shoulders of Mr Dodds' pupils at the United school.

   1977, K.M. Elizabeth Murray, Caught in the Web of Words, Oxford: Oxford University Press, page 31

present singular third person tawses · participle present tawsing · participle past tawsed · past tawsed

1. ScotlandtransitiveTo beat with a tawse.