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American Heritage Dictionary:
gal·lows |
[Middle English galwes, pl. of galwe, gallows, from Old English gealga, galga.]
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Fowler's Modern English Usage:
gallows |
Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore:
gallows |
A number of beliefs and customs clustered around the gallows, the hangman's rope, and even the body of the executed person. The wood of the gallows itself was prized for its curative properties, as it was believed effective against the ague and toothache. The earliest references show that for the ague, a piece was worn or carried as an amulet, as noted by Sir Thomas Browne in his Pseudodoxia Epidemica ((1650; 6th edn. 1672), book 5, chapter 23) ‘when for amulets against agues we use the chips of gallows and places of execution’. From the 19th century on, the emphasis is on splinters of the wood being placed in the mouth to cure the toothache. Attention also focused on the rope used in the hanging. Reginald Scot (1584: book 12, chapter 14) reports ‘A charme for the headach: Tie a halter about your head, wherewith one hath beene hanged’, and a century later John Aubrey (1686/1880: 198) confirms its practice, commenting that the hangman makes a profit by selling pieces of the rope. This belief had been held in classical times, and continued to be reported in England well into the 20th century. In addition to being good for headaches, the rope was held to be generally lucky, especially by card-players. The body of the hanged person was also valuable, the touch of the corpse's hand was used to cure swellings (see dead man's hand) and the hand of glory was much prized by burglars. Mandrakes were believed to grow especially beneath the gallows ‘… arising from fat or urine that drops from the body of the dead’ (Browne, 1672: book 2 chapter 6).
See also HANGMAN'S STONE; SKIN (HUMAN)
Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.
Devil's Dictionary:
gallows |
n.
A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. In this country the gallows is chiefly remarkable for the number of persons who escape it.
Whether on the gallows high
Or where blood flows the reddest,
The noblest place for man to die --
Is where he died the deadest.
(Old play)
Word Tutor:
gallows |
There was a gallows set up in the middle of the Old West Town.
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Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'gallows' |
Rhymes:
gallows |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Gallows |
A gallows is a frame, typically wooden, used for execution by hanging, or by means to torture before execution, as was used when being hanged, drawn and quartered. The gallows took its form from the Roman Furca when Constantine abolished crucifixion.[1]
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Contents
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A gallows can take several forms.
Occasionally, an improvised gallows is used, usually by hanging the condemned from a tree or street light. Hangings from such improvised gallows are usually lynchings rather than judicial executions.
Gallows may be permanent to act as a deterrent and grim symbol of the power of high justice (the French word for gallows, potence, stems from the Latin word potentia, meaning "power"). Many old prints of European cities show such a permanent gallows erected on a prominent hill outside the walls, or more commonly near the castle or other seat of justice. In the modern era the gallows were often installed inside a prison; freestanding on a scaffold in the yard, erected at ground level over a pit, enclosed in a small shed of stone, brick or wood, built into the gallery of a prison wing (with beam in brackets on opposite walls), or in a purpose-built execution suite of rooms within the wing and close to the condemned cell.
Gallows can also be temporary. In some of the cases, they were even moved to the location of the crime. In England, pirates were typically executed using a temporary gallows, at low tide in the intertidal zone, then left for the sea to wash over them during three following high tides.[2]
The only surviving New Drop gallows in the UK are in Rutland County Museum. The gallows were portable and were set up at the gaol when needed. These gallows were first used in 1813 to hang two burglars. The New Drop design was not very effective as the drop was too short to break the neck cleanly.
If a crime took place inside, e.g., a building, gallows may be erected—and the criminal hanged—at the front door. In some cases of multiple offenders it was not uncommon to erect multiple temporary gallows, with one noose per condemned criminal. In one case a condemned strangled to death in agony for forty minutes until he finally died from asphyxiation.
Hanging people from early gallows sometimes involved fitting the noose around the person's neck while he or she was on a ladder or in a horse-drawn cart underneath. Removing the ladder or driving the cart away left the person dangling by the neck to slowly strangle. Later, a "scaffold" with a trap-door tended to be used, so victims dropped down and died quickly from a broken neck rather than through strangulation, especially if extra weights were fixed to their ankles.
During the era of public execution in London, England, a prominent gallows stood at Tyburn, now in the region of Connaught Square. Later executions occurred outside Newgate Gaol, now the Old Bailey.
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Translations:
Gallows |
idioms:
Français (French)
n. - gibet, potence
idioms:
Deutsch (German)
n. - Galgen, %
idioms:
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - αγχόνη, κρεμάλα
idioms:
idioms:
Português (Portuguese)
n. - forca (f), enforcamento (m), armação (f) (para ginástica)
idioms:
Русский (Russian)
виселица, казнь через повешение
idioms:
Español (Spanish)
n. - horca, cadalso, patíbulo, ejecución por colgamiento
idioms:
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
绞架, 绞刑
idioms:
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. pl. - 絞架, 絞刑
n. - 絞架, 絞刑
idioms:
한국어 (Korean)
n. pl. - 바자의 멜빵
n. - 교수대[모양의 것]
idioms:
العربيه (Arabic)
(الاسم) مشنقه
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - עמוד תלייה, גרדום, תלייה
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Copyrights:
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Fowler's Modern English Usage. Oxford University Press. © 1999, 2004 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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| Oxford Dictionary of English Folklore. A Dictionary of English Folklore. Copyright © 2000, 2003 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Devil's Dictionary. Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911 Read more |
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| Word Tutor. Copyright © 2004-present by eSpindle Learning, a 501(c) nonprofit organization. All rights reserved. eSpindle provides personalized spelling and vocabulary tutoring online; sign up free. Read more |
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| Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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| Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary. Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary © Anne Bradford, 1986, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008 HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Gallows. Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
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