gibbet
Americannoun
verb (used with object)
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to hang on a gibbet.
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to put to death by hanging on a gibbet.
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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
But, without the dire consequences predicted by Ellenborough, gibbet and gallows were prescribed for fewer & fewer crimes.
From Time Magazine Archive
When Berault mounts the gibbet, the frame cuts off six steps.
From Time Magazine Archive
Well beyond the gibbet, two men in mail hauberks stood leaning on their spears in front of the long low building by the water, the one with the slate roof.
From "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin
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
"Port Light" at Wappin' Wharf 42 Patch: Wappin' wharf and gibbets is nothin' ter talk about.
From Wappin' Wharf A Frightful Comedy of Pirates by Flory, Julia McCune
It was a sad and strange sight to behold all these elegant cavaliers and beautiful women passing, like one of the processions which Goya has painted, under the blackened skeletons and tall grim gibbets.
From Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845 by Various
A certain Mansell of Otery is gibbeted as a terror to evil doers in a way which would form a sufficient ground for an action for libel in these degenerate days.—Ship,
From The Ship of Fools, Volume 1 by Barclay, Alexander
Huge as his figure must once have been, it now seemed, like his gibbeted plates, all battered and chipped and over-written with the marks of time.
From Never-Fail Blake by Stringer, Arthur
Sir Robert Constable was gibbeted above the Beverley-gate, Hull, in 1537, for high treason.
From Bygone Punishments by Andrews, William
This is not unnatural when we remember how that unfortunate woman has been gibbeted for all time in the characters of Mlle.
From Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle by Shorter, Clement King
Impunity seems assured him, for what peasant would be mad enough to attack a master who could have him gibbeted at a word?
From Là-bas by Wallace, Keene
Next we come to the gibbeting of a Threlkeld man, one of the earliest recorded instances of that punishment being imposed in the County Palatine.
From Bygone Cumberland and Westmorland by Scott, Daniel
It was not until 1752, by an Act of 25 George II., that gibbeting was legally recognised.
From Bygone Punishments by Andrews, William
With bubbling yells it came, trampling the undergrowth, drumming on its huge breast, gibbeting with demoniac rage and pain--came swiftly, like the terrific things that people nightmares.
From Darkness and Dawn by England, George Allan
The treasurer's accounts for Derbyshire, for 1815-16, show, says Dr. Cox, that the punishment of gibbeting involved a serious inroad on the county finances.
From Bygone Punishments by Andrews, William
It walks abroad, it continues its ravages, whilst you are gibbeting the carcass or demolishing the tomb.
From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) by Burke, Edmund
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.
