Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a judicial flogging; a beating.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Lacing Beating, Drubbing.
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1836		T. Haliburton Clockmaker I 107: He would take to scolding the nigger [...] throw all the blame on him, and order him to have an everlastin lacin with the cowskin.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Nov. 28/4: It was no joke; also, it was no fight – it was a lacing given by a big, determined, stubborn man to a small, weak, game man.
1915		Van Loan ‘On Account of a Lady’ in Taking the Count 145: I never got such a lacing in my life.
1925		Gleason & Taber Is Zat So? I i: What a lacin’ he give that bum.
1931		(con. 1900) C.W. Willemse Behind The Green Lights 39: Arresting those toughs for disorderly conduct didn’t mean a thing to them, but a lacing with a nightstick was another matter.
1943		R. Ottley New World A-Coming 192: When he [Jeffries] squared off with Johnson at Reno, Nevada, July 4, 1910, he took one of the most awful lacings a fighter had ever received in the city [DA].
1953		K. Tennant Joyful Condemned 213: They’d given the Digger a proper lacing when they had him alone.
1977		in K. Gilbert Living Black 38: They all got stuck into ’em, gave ’em a hell of a lacing.

2. a verbal attack, criticism.

1948		G. Marx letter 10 Nov. in Groucho Letters (1967) 154: I am slowly recovering from the lacing we received from the New York critics.
1954		(con. 1940s) T.A.G. Hungerford Sowers of the Wind 141: Rod nailed the others [...] He gave them a hell of a lacing, but they didn’t let on.