Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a violent assault, a beating up.

1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 415/2: He stepped up to me and gave me a regular pasting. He horsewhipped me up and down stairs, and all along the passages; my flesh was like sassages.
1890		Bulletin (Sydney) 5 July 18/1: The writer has seen Dooley, in a fight with the raw ’uns, and show that he could take a pasting with the best of them, but he is of so nervous a temperament that he is usually beaten before he steps into the ring.
1905		‘Sam Holt’ in ‘Banjo’ Paterson Old Bush Songs 72: Don’t you remember the pasting you got / By the boys down in Callaghan’s store?
1917		A.S.G. Lee letter in No Parachute (1968) 3 Sept. 112: Hazebrouck took a bad pasting.
1926		N. Fleischer in Ring Nov. 10: A shellacking or a pasting or a severe beating or licking today is just another expression for a ‘snoozing,’ which the oldtimers got.
1931		D. Runyon ‘Hold ’Em, Yale!’ in Runyon on Broadway (1954) 157: I am now going to get even for the pasting I take from the Harvards.
1940		V. Hodgson Diaries (1999) 22 Oct. 71: I’m afraid Brum had a bit of a pasting. All Clear at 4a.m.
1955		(con. 1939–45) J. Klaas Maybe I’m Dead 283: Bombs away! Some place up ahead took an hour-long pasting.
1965		J. Orton Loot Act II: The coffin took a pasting, you know.
1977		(con. 1949) J.G. Dunne True Confessions (1979) 186: He remembered his first fight [...] He got twenty-five dollars and a pasting from Jackie Ahearne.
1985		S. Berkoff West in Decadence and Other Plays (1985) 104: They came back for revenge last night / for the almighty pasting that they took.
1992		R.G. Barrett White Shoes 93: No one likes getting a pasting.
1998		Hip-Hop Connection Dec. 8: Living in fear of a pasting from emcees who scrap better than they rap is bad enough.
2004		(con. 1960s-70s) T. Taylor Top Fellas 37/1: Copping a pasting from a gang of sharps.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 78: [...] letting loose with his fists and giving the bloke a pasting.

2. in fig. use, e.g. of a critically negative review.

1940		W.R. Burnett High Sierra in Four Novels (1984) 393: The fix has slipped. The Bookie Syndicate is in for a pasting.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 102: Gord, does he give me a pasting. You so-and-so and up-and-coming so-and-so, he says.
1962		F. Norman in Town Dec. in Norman’s London (1969) 118: The leading lady got the pasting of her life.
1970		A. Sillitoe Start in Life (1979) 192: It was my opinion that he wanted a pasting, but to hint as much to anybody else would have got a leg torn from me.