Keelhaul

Today’s word of the day is keelhaul, K-E-E-L-H-A-U-L. Keelhaul is a verb that means to rebuke harshly. The origin of our word of the day is from the Dutch word kielhalen (KEEL hall en) which was named for the act of dragging someone through water under the keel of the ship as a form of punishment. More recently the word simply means to punish someone severely. For example: I hope they don’t keelhaul me for the mistake I made on the Pinkerton account. With all the money at stake, I wouldn’t blame them for wanted to punish me pretty harshly.