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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gouging

Bouge \Bouge\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Gouged; p. pr. & vb. n. Gouging.]

  1. To scoop out with a gouge.

  2. To scoop out, as an eye, with the thumb nail; to force out the eye of (a person) with the thumb. [K S.]

    Note: A barbarity mentioned by some travelers as formerly practiced in the brutal frays of desperadoes in some parts of the United States.

  3. To cheat in a bargain; to chouse. [Slang, U. S.]

Wiktionary
gouging

n. A mark produced by gouge. vb. (present participle of gouge English)

Wikipedia
Gouging (fighting style)

Rough and tumble or gouging was a form of fighting in the back-country United States, primarily in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. It was often characterized by the objective of gouging out an opponent's eye, and typically took place in order to settle disputes. Though gouging was common by the 1730s in southern colonies, the practice was waning by the 1840s, by which time the Bowie knife and revolver had made frontier disputes more lethal. Though it was never an organized sport, participants would sometimes schedule their fights (as one could schedule a duel), and victors were treated as local heroes. Gouging was essentially a type of duel to defend one's honor that was most common among the poor, and was especially common in southern states in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

When a dispute arose, fighters could either agree to fight "fair," meaning according to Broughton's rules, or "rough and tumble." According to Elliott Gorn,

Noses, lips, and genitals, could be disfigured in these fights, but Gorn notes:

The practice spread at least as far west as rural Missouri, where "a particularly dextrous fellow could pluck his opponent's eyeballs from their sockets with one good thrust of the thumbs." This disfigurement may have been subsequently construed as a visible sign of dishonor. Though the practice was widespread, it was "best suited to the backwoods," according to Gorn.

An act passed by the Virginia Assembly in 1752 begins by remarking that many mischievous and ill disposed persons have of late, in a malicious and barbarous manner, maimed, wounded, and defaced, many of his majesty's subjects, then very specifically makes it a felony to put out an eye, slit the nose, bite or cut off a nose, or lip, among other offenses. The Assembly went on to amend the act in 1772 to make it clear that this included gouging, plucking or putting out an eye. Court cases and legal rulings in Tennessee, South Carolina, and Arkansas provide ample evidence of the history of this type of fighting. Though legend sometimes amplifies the brutality of these fights, Gorn emphasizes the historical reality of these events:

Usage examples of "gouging".

On they rampaged along the corridors, smashing, gouging and rending as they went.

But immediately after the young mountains were born, the rain and the glaciers had begun their work, gouging and eroding, washing the mountains back to the sea: On this turbulent planet, rock flowed like water, and mountain ranges rose and fell like dreams.

Sranc, shrieking Sranc, thousands upon thousands of them, clawing black blood from their skin, gouging themselves blind.

Jacques spins around, his clawed toes gouging the dirt, seeking purchase.

Hand over hand, claws gouging into the metal, it pulls itself up the back of the vehicle, climbing onto the roof.

I watched him gouging the back-hoe into the soft earth, I became aware of a third man who had joined us.

The zombies had shown a penchant for gouging the eyes from their victims.

It would take extreme force of will to prevent herself from gouging his eyes out when they met.

Wind and water had worn crevices in the earth, like the gougings of a giant's fingers.

She hadn’t looked carefully enough when he first made his appearance: now she saw the deeply-etched lines, the gougings around his eyes and his mouth.

Manton had two malignant wounds in the chest, and some less severe cuts or gougings in the back.