Meaning of kiss the gunner's daughter | Babel Free

Definitions

To be flogged or beaten while restrained over a cannon.

archaic, idiomatic

Examples

“But I was punished, my lad—made to kiss the wench that never speaks but when she scolds, and that's the gunner's daughter, comrade.”

“"No," replied Bosun Thorpe, "for any breaches of discipline by boy seamen are dealt within by making him, in naval jargon, ‘kiss the gunner's daughter’. . . . he bends over one of the guns; then he is lashed across the backside."”

CEFR level