scragging, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

scragging n.

1. a hanging.

1725		J. Wild ‘Advice to his Successor’ in Fielding Hist. of Life of J. Wild (1840) lxvi: There are ways to bring honest men into scrapes, whereby they may, if the plumpers rap hard* come in for a scragging bout (*Fellows hired to swear; Keep close what they swear).
1812		implied in scragging post
1836–7		Dickens Pickwick Papers (1999) 136: The young ’ooman deserved scragging a precious sight more than he did.
1859		‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ in Matsell Vocabulum 101: Only nine months on the pad, and to be up for Scragging!
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 283/1: Sentence o’ Friday, and scragging o’ Monday.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1901		Truth (Sydney) 20 Jan. 5/4: [headline] Nosey Bob’s Diamond Jubilee / Champion Choker of the Century / An Unrivalled Record in Rope / Howard’s Sixtieth ‘Scragging’.

2. a beating.

1829		‘The New Policeman’ in C. Hindley James Catnach (1878) 204: Tho’ a scrag he stole, / Never dreamt of scragging.
1900		Marvel XIV:344 June 1: Now I wish I had got the scragging!
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 218: The term ‘scragging’ is recurrent everywhere, and seems in fact to be different from giving someone a ‘beating up’ or ‘bashing’. One boy makes the distinction: ‘To scrag is a more gentle way of having a kind of hurtful revenge. You pull his hair and take his tie off and that sort of thing’.

3. a shooting.

1938

D. Runyon ‘Sense of Humor’ Runyon on Broadway (1954) 274: The scragging being done by some parties in an automobile who seem to have a machine gun.

scragging affair (n.)

(UK Und.) a capital crime.

1833

H. Smith Gale Middleton 1 152: This here’s a scragging affair if we don’t make a clean job on’t it .

scragging match (n.)

(UK Und.) a judicial hanging.

1865

Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 118/2: They are going to the ‘scragging’ match what’s ‘coming off’ to-morrow at York Castle.

scragging post (n.)

the gallows.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1828		T. Gaspey History of George Godfrey III 24: They had ascended by regular gradations, from the area sneak, — robbing the areas of houses; and the kid rig, — imposing on boys entrusted with parcels, braving every variety of punishment, from the stoop, to the scragging post.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 157: ‘Ah, dear dame,’ said Paul, ‘we can’t help these rubs and stumbles on our road to preferment!’ ‘Road to the scragging-post!’ cried the dame.
1836		H.M. Milner Turpin’s Ride to York I iii: I shall never come to the scragging-post, unless you turn topsman.