tumbrel
Americannoun
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one of the carts used during the French Revolution to convey victims to the guillotine.
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a farmer's cart, especially one for hauling manure, that can be tilted to discharge its load.
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Obsolete. a two-wheeled covered cart accompanying artillery for carrying tools, ammunition, etc.
noun
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a farm cart for carrying dung, esp one that tilts backwards to deposit its load. A cart of this type was used to take condemned prisoners to the guillotine during the French Revolution
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(formerly) a covered cart that accompanied artillery in order to carry ammunition, tools, etc
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an obsolete word for a ducking stool
Etymology
Origin of tumbrel
1275–1325; Middle English tumberell ducking stool < Medieval Latin tumberellus < Old French tumberel dump-cart, equivalent to tombe ( r ) to fall ( see tumble) + -rel -rel
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.
“Mr Thomas the careers man came and he thinks I should do economics,” my diary records in tumbrel dread.
From The Guardian • Apr. 27, 2019
Traditionally, of course, it's Marie Antoinette, who must have had souls rattling round in her like distressed aristocrats in a tumbrel.
From The Guardian • Sep. 3, 2010
In it, he brings off an excruciating knock-knock joke in French-en route to his conclusion about the uses of laughter in the gloomy present: "In this age penumbral,/Let the timbrel resound in the tumbrel."
From Time Magazine Archive
MacBird! by Barbara Garson has been awaited with all the fierce anticipatory noises surrounding a tumbrel arriving at the guillotine.
From Time Magazine Archive
I was the condemned young aristocrat holding my head high in the tumbrel.
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
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.
