English

Verb

kiss the gunner's daughter

1. (archaic, idiomatic, navy) To be flogged or beaten while restrained over a cannon.
   • 1824, Sir Walter Scott, Redgauntlet, ch. 14:

     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.

   • 2002, Wallace Bruce, John Paul Jones: Father of the United States Navy, ISBN 9780595242320, p. 81:

     "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."