frogmarch

See also: frog-march and frog march

English

From frog +‎ march. Originated circa 1871, from the resemblance of the target to a splayed-out frog.

frogmarch (third-person singular simple present frogmarches, present participle frogmarching, simple past and past participle frogmarched) (transitive)

To march or force a person forward while holding their arms from behind or the side, as a prisoner.
- 2024 May 29, Ryan Lenora Brown, “South Africans head to polls. After 30 years, has Mandela’s party lost its luster?”, in The Christian Science Monitor:
  Maybe it happened during the COVID-19 lockdowns, when no one could work and soldiers frog-marched curfew-breakers through the township streets like criminals.
(figurative) To force a person forward against their will.
- 1940, Thomas Firbank, I Bought a Mountain:
  The wind frogmarched me at a run into the house.
(dated) To carry a person face-down with one person holding each limb.
To forcibly relocate a person, especially in a degrading or humiliating manner.

frogmarch (plural frogmarches)