frog-march

Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 12, 2010 is: frog-march • \FROG-march\  • verb : to seize from behind roughly and forcefully propel forward Examples: When the patron became loud and belligerent, a hulking bouncer swiftly pinned him in a half nelson and frog-marched him out the door. Did you know? There are a couple variations of the "frog's march" used to carry off an unruly person. The first involves carrying the person face downward by the arms and legs; when this is done by four people each holding a limb, the person's body resembles a stretched out frog. In another version the person is carried off by his collar and the seat of his pants, again giving the image of a frog but this time with limbs uselessly flailing about. These ways of moving a person gave us the verb "frog-march" in the late 19th century. The verb was also extended to cover more general, less frog-like, methods of removal, such as forcing the intractable individual forward with arms held in back or at the sides. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.