tawse

• taws

Apparently a plural form of taw, though attested earlier.

• IPA^(key): /tɔːz/
• Rhymes: -ɔːz

tawse (plural tawses)

1. (chiefly Scotland) A 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.
   • 1919, William Butler Yeats, The Wild Swans at Coole, "The Saint and the Hunchback":

     I lay about me with the taws

     that night and morning I may thrash

     Greek Alexander from my flesh ...

tawse (third-person singular simple present tawses, present participle tawsing, simple past and past participle tawsed)

1. (transitive, chiefly Scotland) To beat with a tawse.

• Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
• Corpun.com, a specialized website on Corporal Punishments

• Sweat, Weast, swate, sweat, waste, wetas