Idiom
bash the bishop
Meaning
To masturbate by stimulating one's penis.
Meaning adapted from Wiktionary, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Examples
“He went to his room to bash the bishop.”
“The teenager was embarrassed when his mother walked in while he was bashing the bishop.”
“After his roommate finally left for the weekend, he felt relieved to have enough privacy to bash the bishop without being interrupted.”
“Finding himself alone in the house for the afternoon, he retreated to the privacy of his bedroom to bash the bishop.”
Examples
simple
“He went to his room to bash the bishop.”
contextual
“The teenager was embarrassed when his mother walked in while he was bashing the bishop.”
“After his roommate finally left for the weekend, he felt relieved to have enough privacy to bash the bishop without being interrupted.”
complex
“Finding himself alone in the house for the afternoon, he retreated to the privacy of his bedroom to bash the bishop.”
Origin
The origin of the phrase remains uncertain. Goldman suggested in 1950 that the variant "beat the bishop" was inspired by a perceived resemblance between the penis and a bishop’s mitre. In 1970, the lexicographer Partridge offered a similar anatomical comparison, though he preferred the silhouette of the Staunton bishop chess piece as the likely visual reference.
A different theory, supported by Green, posits that the expression arose from simple wordplay rather than a visual likeness. Under this view, the assonance of "bishop" with verbs such as "bash," "beat," or "bop" provided the primary motivation for the term's construction.
Key words
Related idioms
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