lick

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   beat thoroughly and conclusively in a competition or fight

   We licked the other team on Sunday!

2. 2
   verb

   pass the tongue over

   The dog licked the floor.

3. 3
   verb

   To stroke with the tongue.

   The cat licked its fur.

4. 4
   verb

   To lap; to take in with the tongue.

   She licked the last of the honey off the spoon before washing it.

5. 5
   verb

   To beat with repeated blows.

   "What a curious kind of a fool a girl is! Never been licked in school! Shucks! What's a licking! That's just like a girl -- they're so thin-skinned and chicken-hearted. […]"

6. 6
   verb

   To defeat decisively, particularly in a fight.

   My dad can lick your dad.

7. 7
   verb

   To overcome.

   I think I can lick this.

8. 8
   verb

   To lap.

   Now, in this decadent age the art of fire-making had been altogether forgotten on the earth. The red tongues that went licking up my heap of wood were an altogether new and strange thing to Weena.

Etymology

From Middle English likken, from Old English liccian, from Proto-West Germanic *likkōn, from Proto-Germanic *likkōną, from Proto-Indo-European *leyǵʰ- (“to lick”). Sense evolution towards violence unclear; not paralleled in any other Germanic language. See also Saterland Frisian likje, Dutch likken, German lecken; also Old Irish ligid, Latin lingō (“lick”), ligguriō (“to lap, lick up”), Lithuanian laižyti, Old Church Slavonic лизати (lizati), Ancient Greek λείχω (leíkhō), Old Armenian լիզեմ (lizem), Persian لیسیدن (lisidan), Sanskrit लेढि (léḍhi), रेढि (réḍhi).