flog

To be continuing to focus on something, especially an issue or topic, that is no longer of any use or relevance. I don't know why you're flogging a dead horse—the rest of us have moved on from that problem.

To continue to focus on something—especially an issue or topic—that is no longer of any use or relevance. We've all moved on from that problem, so there's no use beating a dead horse.

To linger over or discuss something so long and to such a tedious and laborious extent that the subject is no longer of any interest or relevance. I think we should move on to another topic before we flog this one to death. The film's rhetorical message has been flogged to death by everyone you talk to.

To continue to focus on something—especially an issue or topic—that is no longer of any use or relevance. We've all moved on from that problem, so there's no use flogging a dead horse.

vulgar slang Of a man, to masturbate.

vulgar slang Of a man, to masturbate.

Fig. to insist on talking about something that no one is interested in, or that has already been thoroughly discussed. The history teacher lectured us every day about the importance of studying history, until we begged him to stop flogging a dead horse. Jill: I think I'll write the company president another letter asking him to prohibit smoking. Jane: There's no use beating a dead horse, Jill; he's already decided to let people smoke.

Lit. to beat someone to death with a whip. In the movie, the captain ordered the first mate to flog the sailor to death.

Fig. to dwell on something so much that it no longer has any interest. Stop talking about this! You've flogged it to death. Walter almost flogged the whole matter to death before we stopped him.

Also, flog a dead horse. Try to revive interest in a hopeless issue. For example, Politicians who favor the old single-tax idea are beating a dead horse. From the 1600s on the term dead horse was used figuratively to mean "something of no current value," specifically an advance in pay or other debt that had to be worked ("flogged") off. [Second half of 1800s]

If you work your guts out, flog your guts out or slog your guts out, you work very hard. These women were amazing. They worked their guts out from 7.30 to 4.30 every day, often all evening and weekend too if they had families. I've been slogging my guts out for months, trying to get this project finished.

If someone is flogging a dead horse, they are wasting their time trying to achieve something that cannot be done. After putting in all that hard work it feels like we're flogging a dead horse — it's all very discouraging. You're beating a dead horse on this. These guys are defeated.

To pursue a futile goal or belabor a point to no end. That this sort of behavior makes no sense was pointed out by the Roman playwright Plautus in 195 b.c. The analogy certainly seems ludicrous; what coachman or driver would actually take a whip to a dead animal? The figurative meaning has been applied for centuries as well; often it is used in politics, concerning an issue that is of little interest to voters. However, some writers, John Ciardi among them, cite a quite different source for the cliché. In the late eighteenth century, British merchant seamen often were paid in advance, at the time they were hired. Many would spend this sum, called a dead horse, before the ship sailed. They then could draw no more pay until they had worked off the amount of the advance, or until “the dead horse was flogged.”