1912 illustration of a man in an American prison being stretched over a barrel and then flogged with a paddle. A man, clad only in underwear, is tied down, stretched over a barrel screaming, while a prison guard beats him with a paddle. Another prison guard and two men dressed in suits observe.
8 July 2021
To be over a barrel is to be in someone’s power or otherwise in some dire predicament. The phrase is an Americanism that dates to at least 6 June 1890 when the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on the conviction of a man for forgery:
A Post-Intelligencer reporeer [sic] called upon McCoombs in the county jail after he had heard the verdict. He appeared in his usual good spirits, and the conviction of forgery seemed to rest lightly upon his mind. He was not disposed to talk about the case. All he would say was: “They tried pretty hard to get me over a barrel up in court today, and I guess they half succeeded, but we will fool ’em yet.”
Another early use from Washington state is from 24 February 1893, when it appears in a Tacoma, Washington news story about a certain “Jumbo” Cantwell attempting to swear out an arrest warrant for a police detective named Flanigan:
Flanigan is alleged to have then told “Jumbo” that he had him “over a barrel and would do him up,” to which “Jumbo” says he replied: “No you won’t.” Then, according to Cantwell, Flanigan grabbed him by the throat, when “Jumbo” struck him in the neck and knocked him down and into a little room off the hallway. Ben Everett then interfered and pulled “Jumbo” off Flanigan.
The detective tells a different story, to the effect that he had told “Jumbo” that he hadn’t talked about him, when the latter called him a liar and assaulted him.
And there is this from 19 February 1900 in a news story about a certain Dr. Tracey (or Treacey, different papers spell the name differently) attempting to bribe a Montana supreme court justice to induce him to dismiss a case. This account was widely syndicated in newspapers across the United States:
Dr. Tracey said he had never had authority from any one to make a proposition of bribery to Mr. Hunt, but he had not told the judge of this circumstance until he was notified that Judge Hunt was to be summoned to Washington. He had then told the judge that he had no $50,000 or $100,000 to offer him and no authority from any one to make such an offer.
Referring to his interviews with Attorney General Nolan, the witness said that when he spoke to that gentleman about the Wellcome case, the latter replied:
“I’ve got them over a barrel.”
“I told him,” said the witness, “that he’d better get $100,000 out of the business, destroy his stenographic notes and get out of the business. He seemed to feel pretty good over it,” continued the witness[, “]and I took it that he thought it was a good idea. It was all pure ‘josh,’ and he knew it was.”
The metaphor underlying over a barrel is not known for certain, but it most likely is an allusion to strapping or holding a person over a barrel in order to flog them. We can see just such a literal use of the phrase in an 1869 bit of doggerel by journalist Marcus M. “Brick” Pomeroy about schoolteachers disciplining children. This is by no means the first such literal use, just an example:
I’d like to be a school-marm,
And with the school-marms stand,
With a bad boy over a barrel
And a spanker in my hand.
It is commonly asserted that over a barrel is nautical in origin and refers to sailors being flogged for various breaches of discipline. But there is no association with the phrase and the navy in the literature, and the practice of the Royal and U.S. Navies was to use a grating, not a barrel, for such punishment.
The Oxford English Dictionary, in an older, unrevised entry, says the metaphor is “apparently in allusion to the state of a person placed over a barrel to clear his lungs of water after being rescued from drowning.” While one can indeed find literal uses of over a barrel in reference to post-drowning resuscitation, this explanation doesn’t accord with the sense of being in someone’s power. The idea of flogging or discipline is more likely the origin.
Sources:
“Dr. Tracey Declares It Was All ‘a Josh.’” Atlanta Journal, 19 February 1900, 5. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“‘Jumbo’ and Flanigan.” Tacoma Daily News (Washington), 24 February 1893, 7. Readex: America’s Historical Newspapers.
“M’Coombs Convicted.” Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washington), 6 June 1890, 14. Library of Congress: Historical American Newspapers.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. barrel, n.
Pomeroy, Marcus M. “Brick.” Nonsense, or the Hits and Criticisms on the Follies of the Day.” New York: G.W. Carleton, 1869. 225. HathiTrust Digital Archive.
Tréguer, Pascal. “‘Over a Barrel’” Meaning, Early Instances and Probable Origin.” Wordhistories.net, 5 May 2021.
Image credit: M.L. Bracker, 1912. From Julian Leavitt. “The Man in the Cage.” The American Magazine, 73.5, March 1912, 537 . Google Books. Public domain image.