trout slap

verb

To strongly or humorously rebuke or humiliate.

Meanings

verbtrout slap (third-person singular simple present trout slaps, present participle trout slapping, simple past and past participle trout slapped)

present singular third person trout slaps · participle present trout slapping · participle past trout slapped · past trout slapped · alternative trout-slap

  1. InternetTo strongly or humorously rebuke or humiliate.

    There's no grade inflation — your GPA will be trout slapped until it hides under the table at a respectable 2.7.

    2005, Moana Evans, Harvey Mudd College College Prowler Off the Record, →ISBN, page 132
    2 more examples

    It might give it more weight when he would like to a) trout slap himself, b) trout slap any other living breathing creature deserving to be trout-slapped.

    1999 July 20, Jooooooky Joooky Junk, “Summer Of Sean”, in alt.tv.x-files (Usenet)

    Anyone have a page with Dawn Newsgroup etiquette? Maybe it's time to start one so the rest of us don't get trout slapped for not knowing something that was discussed years ago.

    2002 May 21, DeannaD, “got your dawn bucks ready??? PT GLori”, in alt.collecting.topper-dawn (Usenet)
nountrout slap (plural trout slaps)

plural trout slaps · alternative trout-slap

  1. InternetAn act of trout slapping.

    You need a good trout slap mister :)

    2001 February 2, Dan Fournier, “Why do I need 'coolbits'”, in alt.comp.periphs.videocards.nvidia (Usenet)
    3 more examples

    She has done nothing yet to show that she deserves a trout slap on the butt.

    1998 November 14, devi...@mindspring.com, “OBSSEers”, in alt.tv.x-files (Usenet)

    The trout slap had given him the idea of how to go about getting what he wanted from Hannah Mayfield.

    1999, Linda Howard, Geralyn Dawson, Miranda Jarrett, Under The Boardwalk, →ISBN

    Stocks enjoyed a fist pound ahead of the long weekend, on hopes that giving Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a trout slap in the mortgage market would throw TWO leprechauns at the credit crunch that sucker punched Bear Stearns.

    2008, Business Review Weekly: BRW - Volume 30, Issues 9-12, page 139

Origin

From an Internet Relay Chat program, mIRC, which includes a /slap command that caused a message to appear that "<person A> slaps <person B> around a bit with a large trout".

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

trout slap. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trout%20slap

MLA

“trout slap.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trout%20slap. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “trout slap,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/trout%20slap.

Source: trout slap on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.