[ad_1] verb (used with object)
- to force (a person) to march with the arms pinioned firmly behind the back.
noun
- a method of carrying a resisting person in which each limb is held by one person and the victim is carried horizontally and face downwards
- any method of making a resisting person move forward against his will
verb
- (tr) to carry in a frogmarch or cause to move forward unwillingly
also frog-march, 1871, a term that originated among London police and referred to their method of moving “a drunken or refractory prisoner” by carrying him face-down between four people, each holding a limb; the connection with frog (n.1) perhaps being the notion of going along belly-down. By the 1930s, the verb was used in reference to the much more efficient (but less frog-like) method of getting someone in an arm-behind-the-back hold and hustling him or her along like that.