Shellacking
noun, verb, slang
noun, verb, slang ·3 syllables ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
Noun
- 1 The act or process of coating with shellac. countable, uncountable
- 2 A heavy defeat, drubbing, or beating; used particularly in sports and political contexts. US, countable, informal, uncountable
"The News baseball team defeated the Press-Guardian outfit, 8 to 4, in a recent game, which squares accounts for the shellacking the News received a year ago."
Verb
- 1 present participle and gerund of shellac form-of, gerund, participle, present
Example
More examples"The News baseball team defeated the Press-Guardian outfit, 8 to 4, in a recent game, which squares accounts for the shellacking the News received a year ago."
Etymology
Etymology 1
From shellac + -ing.
Etymology 2
From shellac + -ing. Shellac is used in floor polish; compare polishing, as in "the other boxer in the match polished the floor with me; I took quite a polishing".
More for "shellacking"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.