| Ga'llow. Ga'llows. |
 |
n.s. [It is used by some in the singular; but by more only in the plural, or sometimes has another plural gallowses. Galga, Gothick; ᵹalᵹa; Saxon; galge, Dutch; which some derive from gabalus, furca, Latin; others from נבה high; others from gallu, Welsh, power: but it is probably derived like gallow, to fright, from aᵹælƿan, the gallows being the great object of legal terrour.] |
- A beam laid over two posts, on which malefactors are hanged.
This monster sat like a hangman upon a pair of gallows: in his right hand he was painted holding a crown of laurel, in his left hand a purse of money. Sidney, b. ii.
I would we were all of one mind, and one mind good; O, there were desolation of gaolers and gallowses. Shakesp. Cymbel.
I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,
This fellow could not drown. Shakespeare's Tempest.A little before dinner he took the major aside, and whispered him in the ear, that execution must that day be done in the town, and therefore required him that a pair of gallows should be erected. Hayward.
A production that naturally groweth under gallowses, and places of execution. Brown's Vulgar Errours, b. ii.
A poor fellow, going to the gallows, may be allowed to feel the smart of wasps while he is upon Tyburn road. Swift.
- A wretch that deserves the gallows.
Cupid hath been five thousand years a boy.
— Ay, and a shrewd unhappy gallows too. Shakespeare.