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I’m reading The Underground Railroad by Coleson Whitehead. Early in the first chapter he writes:

“Her last husband had his ears bored for stealing honey. The wounds gave up pus until he wasted away.”

What does it mean that he had his ears bored?

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  • Perhaps they punctured his eardrums as a punishment. Another ear punishment was cropping so perhaps related to that: holes drilled in the ear flaps so that the felon could be fixed to a tree.
    – Weather Vane
    Commented Jul 27, 2021 at 18:35
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    I’m voting to close this question because as a historical practice, in the historical / literary domain, it's almost certainly a better fit on History or Writing.SE. Dictionaries won't explain this practice.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jul 27, 2021 at 18:39
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    It concerns a historical usage...it belongs here...as shameful as the 'historical practice' might be.
    – Cascabel_StandWithUkraine_
    Commented Jul 27, 2021 at 19:50
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    Ear mutilation was common as a punishment, not just for American slaves: as well as cutting ears off or cutting notches, the ear could be bored with a hot iron or an awl. It's even mentioned in Exodus 21.6. It just means making a hole in it, it's not a distinctive usage of "bored".
    – Stuart F
    Commented Jul 28, 2021 at 10:01
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    This is just the dictionary definition: "make a hole in something"
    – Barmar
    Commented Aug 2, 2021 at 18:48

1 Answer 1

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Per OED ('bore', verb sense 1a, "pierce, perforate") the obsolete sense 1c(a) of "to bore (any one's) ears (in allusion to Exodus xxi. 6)" means "to consign to perpetual slavery". The use is attested in OED from 1641 and 1665.

An earlier use (1602) in this sense (1c), with direct reference to Exodus, is this from Syn theōi en christōi the anvvere to the preface of the Rhemish Testament, by Thomas Cartwright:

So that if as Dauid by Christ, so Christ for Dauid, muste bring not a legall sacrifice, but his ears bored through, that is, a bodie obedient vnto the death…

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  • In the passage in question, the following sentence says “The wounds gave up pus until he wasted away” so I don’t think the “boring” here is figurative.
    – Rob Cranfill
    Commented Dec 7 at 0:39

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