kiss the rod

To accept punishment passively. As a child, I always found it best to just kiss the rod—arguing with my parents always made the situation worse.

kiss the rod

accept punishment meekly or submissively.

This idiom refers to a former practice of making a child kiss the rod with which it was beaten. It is used by Shakespeare in Two Gentlemen of Verona: ‘How wayward is this foolish love That, like a testy babe, will scratch the nurse And presently all humbled kiss the rod’.

See also: kiss, rod

Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017

See also:

References in classic literature

Obedient to that religion which commands us to kiss the rod with which the punishment is inflicted, she praised her husband, and publicly approved him.

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