gibbet

From Middle English gibet, from Old French gibet (French gibet), either from Frankish *gibb (“forked stick”) or from Latin gibbus (“hunchbacked”).[1]

• IPA^(key): /ˈdʒɪbɪt/
• Rhymes: -ɪbɪt

gibbet (plural gibbets)

1. An upright post with a crosspiece used for execution and subsequent public display.

   Synonym: gallows

   • 1728, Otway, Thomas, “The Atheist, or, the Second Part of the Solider's Fortune”, in The Works of Mr. Thomas Otway‎, volume 2, London, page 37:

     No, had every Commandment but a Gibbet belonging to it, I ſhould not have had four King's Evidences to-day ſwear impudently I was a Papiſt, when I was never at Maſs yet ſince I was born, nor indeed at any other Worſhip theſe twenty Years.

2. The projecting arm of a crane, from which the load is suspended; the jib.
3. A human-shaped structure made of iron bands designed to publicly display the corpse of an executed criminal.

gibbet (third-person singular simple present gibbets, present participle gibbeting or gibbetting, simple past and past participle gibbeted or gibbetted)

1. (transitive) To execute (someone), or display (a body), on a gibbet.
2. (transitive) To expose (someone) to ridicule or scorn.

gibbet (plural gibbets)

1. Alternative form of gibet

• “ǧibē̆t(e (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-03-30.