# bash the bishop

> English word · Verb

## Definitions
1. To masturbate by stimulating one's penis.

## Etymology
Uncertain or disputed. Goldman (1950) suggests that beat the bishop comes from a resemblance of the penis to a bishop’s miter; Partridge (7th ed., 1970) likewise derives bash the bishop from a resemblance to the Staunton bishop chess piece. Other sources, such as Green, suggest that assonance of bishop with bash, beat, bop etc. may have given rise to the phrase as a type of word play.

## Source
Compiled from Wiktionary via kaikki.org (CC BY-SA). Data vintage: 2026-05-06.
Canonical page: https://plainspell.com/en/word/bash-the-bishop
