English

Verb

thrash ‎(third-person singular simple present thrashes, present participle thrashing, simple past and past participle thrashed)

1. To beat mercilessly.
2. To defeat utterly.
   • 2011 January 8, Paul Fletcher, “Stevenage 3 - 1 Newcastle”, in BBC:

     Pardew made five changes to the side that thrashed West Ham 5-0 on Wednesday - with players such as James Perch and Alan Smith given the chance to underline their case for a regular starting berth.

3. To thresh.
4. To move about wildly or violently; to flail; to labour.
   • c. 1690, Juvenal, John Dryden (translator), The Tenth Satire of Juvenal, 1987, John Dryden: The Major Works, Oxford University Press, page 364,

     I rather would be Maevius, thrash for rhymes, / Like his, the scorn and scandal of the times.

5. (software) To extensively test a software system, giving a program various inputs and observing the behavior and outputs that result.
6. (computing) In computer architecture, to cause poor performance of a virtual memory (or paging) system.

Related terms

• thrasher
• thresh

Translations

Noun

thrash ‎(uncountable)

1. A beat or blow; the sound of beating.
   • 1918, Henry Adams, The Education of Henry Adams,

     Even among friends at the dinner-table he talked as though he were denouncing them, or someone else, on a platform; he measured his phrases, built his sentences, cumulated his effects, and pounded his opponents, real or imagined. His humor was glow, like iron at dull heat; his blow was elementary, like the thrash of a whale.

   • 1934 May, Robert E. Howard, Queen of the Black Coast in Weird Tales,

     As he reeled on wide-braced legs, sobbing for breath, the jungle and the moon swimming bloodily to his sight, the thrash of bat-wings was loud in his ears.

2. (music) A particularly aggressive and intense form of heavy metal music with a focus on speed, technical precision, and alternate picking.

Synonyms

• (music): thrash metal

References

• (computing, software) P. J. Denning. 1968. Thrashing: Its Causes and Prevention. Proceedings AFIPS,1968 Fall Joint Computer Conference, vol. 33, pp. 915-922.