1. A sound defeat
   "The underdog team received a thrashing in the championship game";
   - walloping, debacle, drubbing [informal], slaughter, trouncing, whipping, pasting [informal], hammering [informal], débâcle, beatdown [N. Amer], smackdown [N. Amer, informal], licking [informal]
    
2. The act of inflicting corporal punishment with repeated blows
   "The thrashing of students was once a common form of discipline in schools";
   - beating, drubbing, hiding [informal]

1. [informal] Beat thoroughly and conclusively in a competition or fight
   "We thrashed the other team on Sunday!";
   - cream [informal], clobber [informal], drub [informal], lick [informal], paste [informal], blow away [informal], muller [Brit, informal], marmelize [Brit, informal], marmelise [Brit, informal], trounce, whale [N. Amer, informal], hammer [informal], wipe the floor [informal], marmalise [Brit, informal], beat hollow [informal], slaughter [informal], marmalize [Brit, informal], smoke [N. Amer, informal], shellack [N. Amer, informal], shellac [N. Amer, informal]
    
2. Move or stir about violently
   "The feverish patient thrashed around in his bed"; "The fish thrashed about in the net";
   - convulse, thresh, thresh about, thrash about, slash, toss, jactitate [rare]
    
3. Beat hard and repeatedly, esp. with a whip, cane, etc.
   "The storm thrashed the coast";
   - thresh, lam [informal], flail
    
4. (farming) beat the seeds out of a grain
   "They thrashed the wheat to separate the grain from the chaff";
   - thresh
    
5. Dance the slam dance
   "The punk rockers thrashed in the mosh pit";
   - slam-dance [informal], slam, mosh
    
6. (medicine) beat so rapidly and ineffectively that cardiac output drops, ultimately failing to pump blood
   "The patient's heart began to thrash before going into complete arrest"
    
7. Move data into and out of core rather than performing useful computation
   "The system is thrashing again!"

Derived forms: thrashings

Type of: agitate, beat, beat out, beat up, corporal punishment, crush, dance, defeat, pound, shake, shell [US], swap, thump, trip the light fantastic [archaic], trip the light fantastic toe [archaic], trounce, vanquish, work over [informal]

Encyclopedia: Thrashing