A good hiding

Posted by Victoria S Dennis November 25, 2009 at 19:11In reply to A good hiding posted by David on November 25, 2009 at 15:01:

To be given a good hiding...

I am an English teacher and I tend to use a lot of idiomatic expressions...

I believe that this comes from 'hide', to skin an animal, therefore a good hiding refers to the apparent result of the beating...

Does anybody know the true meaning?

It's rather simpler than that. There is a (now rare if not obsolete) colloquial verb "to hide", meaning "To beat the hide or skin of; to flog, thrash". A "hiding" is simply a session of this activity.