gibbet

plural gibbets

1. An upright post with a crosspiece used for execution and subsequent public display.

   Near-synonym: gallows

   4 more examples

   Thy Friends without the help of Prophecie, / Read Goals^([sic – meaning Gaols]) and Gibbets in thy Deſtiny; […]

   1702, [Daniel Defoe], “Part I”, in Reformation of Manners, a Satyr, [London]: [s.n.], →OCLC, page 22

   No, had every Commandment but a Gibbet belonging to it, I ſhould not have had four King's Evidences to-day ſwear impudently I was a Papiſt, when I was never at Maſs yet ſince I was born, nor indeed at any other Worſhip theſe twenty Years.

   1728, Thomas Otway, “The Atheist, or, the Second Part of the Soldier’s Fortune”, in The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway, volume II, London, page 37

   Why, your cavalier is a rebel—an exile, whose property is confiscated, and for whose neck the gibbet stands prepared!

   1834, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter I, in Francesca Carrara. […], volume III, London: Richard Bentley, […], (successor to Henry Colburn), →OCLC, pages 241-242

   TUPOLSKI: A man wakes up in the iron gibbet he's been left to starve to death in. He knows he was guilty of the crime they put him in there for, but he cannot remember what the crime was.

   2003, Martin McDonagh, “Act One, Scene One”, in The Pillowman, →ISBN, pages 17-18

   Synonyms: gallows

2. The projecting arm of a crane, from which the load is suspended.

   Synonyms: jib

3. A human-shaped structure made of iron bands designed to publicly display the corpse of an executed criminal.

present singular third person gibbets · participle present gibbeting · participle present gibbetting · participle past gibbeted · past gibbeted · participle past gibbetted · past gibbetted

1. transitiveTo execute (someone), or display (a body), on a gibbet.

   1 more example

   The same animal which hath the honour to have some part of his flesh eaten at the table of a duke, may perhaps be degraded in another part, and some of his limbs gibbeted, as it were, in the vilest stall in town. Where, then, lies the difference between the food of the nobleman and the porter, if both are at dinner on the same ox or calf, but in the seasoning, the dressing, the garnishing, and the setting forth?

   1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume I, London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC

2. transitiveTo expose (someone) to ridicule or scorn.