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View synonyms for electric chair

electric chair

noun

  1. a chair used to electrocute criminals sentenced to death.
  2. the penalty of legal electrocution.


electric chair

noun

    1. an electrified chair for executing criminals
    2. execution by this method
“Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged” 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012


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Word History and Origins

Origin of electric chair1

An Americanism dating back to 1870–75
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Example Sentences

The electric chair was the only method offered to Sigmon in accordance with the state’s new capital punishment law, which effectively made it the default manner of execution.

Two days before South Carolina death row inmate Brad Sigmon was due to be put to death in the state’s 109-year-old electric chair, he won a rare reprieve from the state’s Supreme Court.

“What’s going on is you’re fixing to ride the lightning, son,” Gutierrez yelled at him, a foreboding reference to capital punishment and the electric chair.

A malfunctioning electric chair necessitated the use of three separate jolts instead of the usual one, setting fire to the condemned man before the execution could be carried out.

I was once rewarded for some help with a visit to it, and sat in the electric chair for a moment.

On view in Queens, a small, dark “Little Electric Chair” reminds us of that body of work.

The assumption was that an electric chair death would occur by jolting the heart into stopping.

The main approaches to execution since the guillotine have been hanging, the firing squad, and the electric chair.

When he discovered electricity it took him less than a decade to discover the electric chair.

If you were to do that in this State it would be the electric chair for yours.

The circumstantial evidence was as complete as any that ever sent a criminal to the gallows or the electric chair.

Like an electric chair, the phlebostasis chair was supplied with cuffs for both arms and legs.

And sure enough a day or two later I was put in the electric chair for "reactions."

Any one who puts the extinguisher on Matson would go to the electric chair sure, and nothing could save him.

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electric cellelectric charge