Wednesday's Random Slang-o-rama: Over a barrel

When you find yourself over a barrel, it's not pleasant situation, that's for sure. But just where did this phrase come from, and how long ago? I'm rolling up my Slang-o-rama sleeves and heeeere we go...

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Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary's definition is "at a disadvantage : in an awkward position." The Grammarist says that to have someone over a barrel means "to put someone in a helpless position, to put someone in a difficult situation." The origin? The Grammarist maintains it's "obscure," adding some possible theories:

One theory is that the idiom refers to the practice of draping a drowned man over a barrel in order to clear his lungs of water. Another theory is that is refers to a common hazing practice in college fraternities in the late eighteen-hundreds. Most probably, both of these practices relate to a practice wherein sailors were punished on the high seas by being tied over barrels and flogged. The idiom over a barrel was used in the 1939 movie "The Big Sleep" in a context that suggested it referred to the barrel of a gun, though it was a pun.  

The Phrase Finder agrees that this phrase first appeared in the late-19th century, and notes that it is "American" in origin. Phrase Finder adds:

It alludes to the actual situation of being draped over a barrel, either to empty the lungs of someone who has been close to drowning, or to give a flogging. Either way, the position of helplessness and in being under someone else's control is what is being referred to. ... An example of such a literal "over the barrel" experience was recorded in the Delaware newspaper The Daily Republican, July 1886, which reported the initiation ceremony of a college fraternity... Soon after that "over a barrel" took on the figurative meaning of "in trouble; without any hope of deliverance." This usage is recorded in The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, January 1893, in a story of an unfaithful wife...

WordOrigins.org has a slightly different take on the idiom, suggesting that although it's associated with punishment, it's not necessarily nautical in origin:

....The metaphor underlying over a barrel is not known for certain, but it most likely is an allusion to strapping or holding a person over a barrel in order to flog them. We can see just such a literal use of the phrase in an 1869 bit of doggerel by journalist Marcus M. “Brick” Pomeroy about schoolteachers disciplining children. This is by no means the first such literal use, just an example:

I’d like to be a school-marm,

And with the school-marms stand,

With a bad boy over a barrel

And a spanker in my hand.

It is commonly asserted that over a barrel is nautical in origin and refers to sailors being flogged for various breaches of discipline. But there is no association with the phrase and the navy in the literature, and the practice of the Royal and U.S. Navies was to use a grating, not a barrel, for such punishment.

I think we've flogged the phrase over a barrel enough for now, agreed?

Whoever is in her sights is over a barrel, in more ways than one.
Miriam Kiehl shooting over a barrel, probably at Fort Lawton, 1900, by H. Ambrose Kiehl
https://www.flickr.com/photos/uw_digital_images/4476181241/
No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53413992

**** A tip o' the hat to Leadville buddy and all around awesome person Christine Carlson Whittington who suggested this Slang-o-rama phrase!****