1768. Foote, Devil upon Two Sticks, ii. 1. She paid my bill the next day without SCONCING off sixpence.
1821. The Etonian, ii. 391. Was SCONCED in a quart of ale for quoting Latin, a passage from Juvenal; murmured, and the fine was doubled.
1823. Bee, Slang Dict., s.v. Sconce ... To discontinue: as SCONCE his diet = give less victuals. Sconce the reckoning = to go no further in debt, but bolt.
1847. Halliwell, Archaic Words, s.v. Sconce.... “To SCONCE, to eat more than another, Winton; to SCONCE, to impose a pecuniary mulct, Oxon.,” Kennett, MS. To SCONCE at Oxford, was to put a person’s name in the College buttery books by way of fine.
1864. Hotten, Slang Dict., s.v. Sconce. The Dons fined or SCONCED for small offences; e.g. five shillings for wearing a coloured coat in hall at dinner-time. Among undergrads, a pun, or an oath, or an indecent remark, was SCONCED by the head of the table. If the offender could, however, floor the tankard of beer which he was SCONCED, he could retort on his SCONCER to the extent of twice the amount he was SCONCED in.
1883. H. T. Ellacombe [Notes and Queries, 6 S., viii. 326]. Men were SCONCED if accidentally they appeared in hall undressed. I think the SCONCE was a quantity of beer to the scouts. The SCONCE-table was hung up in the buttery.
1899. Answers, 14th Jan., i. 1. The average freshman is not very long at Oxford before he is acquainted with the mysteries of SCONCING. A SCONCE is a fine of a quart of ale, in which the unlucky fresher is mulcted for various offences in Hall.
1899. Public School Mag., Dec., p. 476. Opponents who get in each other’s way and “SCONCE” the “kicks.”
2. (Winchester).—To hinder; to get in the way: as of a kick at football, a catch at cricket, &c.: e.g. “If you had not SCONCED, I should have made a flyer!”
Scourge, subs. (Winchester: obsolete).—To flog. Whence SCOURGING = a flogging of three strokes. See Scrubbing and Tund.