cutty stool

American  

noun

Scot.

1. a low stool.

2. (formerly) a seat in churches where offenders against chastity, or other delinquents, received public rebuke.

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cutty stool British  

noun

1. (formerly, in Scotland) the church seat on which an unchaste person sat while being harangued by the minister

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Etymology

Origin of cutty stool

First recorded in 1765–75

Example Sentences

Jenny Geddes threw that "cutty stool" towards the head of my distant, illustrious relative, Dean James Hanna, who was reading the Collect for the Seventh Sunday after Trinity.

From Time Magazine Archive

Somebody may come to kame your hair wi' a cutty stool.

From The Proverbs of Scotland by Hislop, Alexander

The rebuke on the cutty stool, like the penance in a white sheet in England, went out of use, and the circumstance is now a matter of "reminiscence."

From Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Ramsay, Edward Bannerman

This was performed by the guilty person standing up before the congregation on a raised platform, called the cutty stool, and receiving a rebuke.

From Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character by Ramsay, Edward Bannerman