'Lick' is an old slang term for 'blow', in the a-blow-was-struck sense. That's why the title of the Rolling Stones' greatest-hits album https://en.wikipedia.org

'Lick' is an old slang term for 'blow', in the a-blow-was-struck sense. That's why the title of the Rolling Stones' greatest-hits album https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Licks https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forty_Licks is a three-way pun. 'Forty licks' is a proverbial term for a particular kind of corporal punishment: forty blows of the cane or whatever. Or see "The Return of Ulysses", the final chapter of The Wind in the Willows: http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/grol/grahame/wind12.htm http://www.cleavebooks.co.uk/grol/grahame/wind12.htm