gibbet
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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gibbets,
present (3rd person singular)
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gibbeted,
past participle, past
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gibbeting
present participle
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to hang on a gibbet.
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to put to death by hanging on a gibbet.
-
to hold up to public scorn.
noun
verb
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to put to death by hanging on a gibbet
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to hang (a corpse) on a gibbet
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to expose to public ridicule
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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gibbetsimple
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gibbetssimple
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have gibbetedperfect
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has gibbetedperfect
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am gibbetingprogressive
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are gibbetingprogressive
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is gibbetingprogressive
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have been gibbetingperfect progressive
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has been gibbetingperfect progressive
Past
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gibbetedsimple
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had gibbetedperfect
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was gibbetingprogressive
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were gibbetingprogressive
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had been gibbetingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of gibbet
1175–1225; Middle English < Old French gibet (earlier, staff or cudgel), diminutive of gibe staff, club
Explanation
A gibbet is a structure that's used to execute criminals by hanging them. The execution of someone on a gibbet is an old-fashioned practice. You can use the word gibbet to mean "gallows," or "public execution structure," and it can also be a verb, meaning to hang a person on one. Back in the days when executioners would routinely gibbet criminals in the public square, the bodies were often left on display — possibly to intimidate other potential criminals. The word gibbet has its root in the Old French gibet, "bent stick or gallows," from gibe, or "club."
Vocabulary lists containing gibbet
The Crucible
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"A Modest Proposal," Vocabulary from the satire
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"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"It fell down, I was nearby and I felt it was important," said Mr Haddock, whose offices sit opposite the gibbet site.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2014
Generations of school children across Halifax are taught the history of its gibbet but a few years ago it fell over due to rot.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2014
The gibbet has long since given way to a graceful fountain, but Pizarro's spirit still inhabits the Plaza de Armas.
From Time Magazine Archive
When Berault mounts the gibbet, the frame cuts off six steps.
From Time Magazine Archive
Under the low red glare of sunset, the beacon, and the gibbet, and the mound of the Battery, and the opposite shore of the river, were plain, though all of a watery lead colour.
From "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens
Although the practice is fading, mole-catchers employ such gibbets to prove that the promised work is completed, and farmers use them to niggle their neighbours into clearing their own fields.
From The Guardian ● Mar. 8, 2017
In Victorian times, the heyday of butterfly collecting, gamekeepers would attract Purple Emperors down to their gibbets by hanging out rotting carcasses of crows and rabbits.
From BBC ● Jul. 22, 2015
The blasts have stripped many shop signs off their brackets, and the gibbets hang forsaken.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
But the abuse of ridicule is not one of the least calamities of literature, when it withers genius, and gibbets whom it ought to enshrine.
From Calamities and Quarrels of Authors by Isaac Disraeli
Long ago have their bones crumbled from the dark gibbets on the lonely sand islands of the Pacific, and they remain without monument or record, except in prison chronicles and forgotten voyages.
From The Monarchs of the Main, Volume III (of 3) Or, Adventures of the Buccaneers by Walter Thornbury
It is a great penalty to pay for greatness to be gibbeted in this fashion.
From The Bramleighs of Bishop's Folly by Charles James Lever
It is hardly possible that Giraldus should have gibbeted such a man under the sobriquet of Golias.
From Wine, Women, and Song Mediaeval Latin Students' songs; Now first translated into English verse by John Addington Symonds
And now we have been dragged from our happy seclusion and gibbeted.
From The Hindered Hand or, The Reign of the Repressionist by Robert E. Bell
There I shall be, gibbeted in that woman's smile!
From The Nest, The White Pagoda, The Suicide, A Forsaken Temple, Miss Jones and The Masterpiece by Anne Douglas Sedgwick
Nay, good mistress," interrupted the Captain, "I will agree to be gibbeted by thine own fair hand, if I do not satisfy thee that in this adventure we are deserving of all applause.
From Rob of the Bowl, Vol. I (of 2) A Legend of St. Inigoe's by John P. Kennedy
I think your success in gibbeting me is not certain.
From Romola by George Eliot
It walks abroad, it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the carcase, or demolishing the tomb.
From Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke by Edmund Burke
It was not until 1752 that gibbeting was recognized by statute.
From Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 12, Slice 8 "Haller, Albrecht" to "Harmonium" by Various
The Times newspaper did good service in gibbeting this precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 54, No. 338, December 1843 by Various
Two pleas only can justify disinterring and gibbeting an author's private life—either his having done the same by others, or his having made the public the confidant of his individual experience.
From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 20. July, 1877. by Various
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
