noun / verb
gibbet
JIB-it/ˈdʒɪbɪt/
A frame for hanging people or displaying executed bodies, or to hang or display someone on it.
A hanging noose dangles from the heavy crossbeam of the empty gibbet.
Etymology
The diminutive of “club” named a small stick with a cross as well as a gallows. Later, gibbet specifically denoted a projecting-arm post used to display criminals’ bodies after execution.
In context
Quasimodo raised his eyes to the gypsy, whose body he beheld hanging from the gibbet
More examples
- After the execution, the body was hung in chains from a gibbet.
- Authorities gibbeted the executed pirate near the harbor as a warning.
- Workers dismantled the wooden gibbets after the executions.
Forms
gibbet · gibbets · gibbeted · gibbeting
Similar words
- gallows
- Usually means a hanging apparatus, rather than a body-display frame.
- scaffold
- Names a raised execution platform, not specifically a hanging frame.