Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) to beat someone up very badly.

1900		Dly Inter-Mountain (Butte, MT) 20 Aug. 3/5: A terrific fist fight between two young society bloods created a [...] sensation last night [...] Fortune favored the light young blood from the start and the aggressor had the tar whaled out of him.
1913		J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 154: The children of the white people that broke away from England an’ licked the tar outa her.
1915		S. Ford Torchy, Private Sec. 91: He’d made his grand roarin’ lion play, which had always scared the tar out of his folks.
1917		W.Y. Stevenson At the Front in a Flivver 9 Sept. 🌐 if they saw a gun emplaced, they’d simply shell the tar out of us.
1922		S. Lewis Babbitt (1974) 250: No wonder he wants to beat the tar out of those sons of guns!
1927		(con. 1900s) S. Lewis Elmer Gantry 10: By God, I’ll knock the tar out of um!
1930		E.H. Lavine Third Degree (1931) 111: Somehow or somewhere someone or something beat the tar out of the thug for being a squealer.
1934		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 198: What he needs is to get the tar kicked out of him.
1938		W. Smitter F.O.B. Detroit 50: Why didn’t you pound the tar outa him?
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 5: You’re going to batter the tar out of Old Adolf.
1942		S. Philips Big Spring 59: You just started out by whaling the tar out of him [DA].
1947		W. Myers ‘Guv’ 248: He beat the living tar out of me two weeks ago [DA].
1953		J. Thompson Savage Night (1991) 23: If we spilled a little meal [...] or something like that, he’d beat the tar out of us.
1955		Mad mag. Feb. 4: Ich’ll whale der tar aur frum dem!
1960		J. Havoc Early Havoc 223: We beat the tar out of that storm — kicking it, shouting into the face of it. Finally it gave up and quit.
1978		S. King Stand (1990) 517: He’d whale the tar out of me.
1982		S. King Different Seasons (1995) 455: You’re gonna get the tar whaled out of you.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 155: Wanda Bodine is trying to find me so she can kick the tar out of me over remarks I made the last two weeks.
2002		S. Schneider review of ‘Mean Machine’ at RottenTomatoes.com 🌐 there’s just something about watching a squad of psychopathic underdogs whale the tar out of unsuspecting lawmen that reaches across time and distance.
2012		T. Pluck ‘Summer of Blind Joe Death’ in Life During Wartime (2018) 167: ‘A which who likes watchiing him whup the tar out of me’.

see seven kinds of shit under shit n.

to punish, to beat.

1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.