shellacking

== English == === Etymology 1 === See the etymology of the corresponding lemma form. ==== Verb ==== shellacking present participle and gerund of shellac === 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". ==== Noun ==== shellacking (countable and uncountable, plural shellackings) The act or process of coating with shellac. (informal, US) A heavy defeat, drubbing, or beating; used particularly in sports and political contexts. 1929 The Leatherneck, vol. 12 (December, 1929), p. 21: Our baseball team got off to an indifferent start at the beginning of the season, but […] "Steve" Newman gave Gonzalo another shellacking that he won't forget for some time. 1944 Frank Marshall Davis, "Defeats of the Home Front" (news article, February 23, 1944; reprinted in Writings of Frank Marshall Davis: A Voice of the Black Press, University Press of Mississippi, 2009, p. 126): Unity and democracy are still taking a shellacking here on the home front, despite our successes in the Marshall Islands and in Italy. 2010 Peter Baker, "What Does He Do Now?", The New York Times Magazine, October 17, 2010: [C]learly Obama hopes that just as Clinton recovered from his party's midterm shellacking in 1994 to win re-election two years later, so can he. 2010 Ben Shpigel, "Charmed Giants Take a Big First Step," The New York Times, October 28, 2010: Bochy was speaking for the masses, who watched a supposed duel of Cy Young award winners evolve into a full-fledged shellacking. 2010 November 4, Barack Obama, comments at a press conference, after his political party lost control of the House of Representatives in the mid-term elections: Now, I'm not recommending for every future president that they take a shellacking like I took last night.