pillory

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“
I think the pillory ought to be abolished A most strange idea.

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Definitions (12)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (3)

  1. noun A wooden framework on a post, with holes for the head and hands, in which offenders were formerly locked to be exposed to public scorn as punishment.
  2. transitive verb To expose to ridicule and abuse.
  3. transitive verb To put in a pillory as punishment.

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This word has been looked up 73 times.

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Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, from Old French pilori, probably from Latin pīla, pillar.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Early modern English pillorie, pillery, pillerie, pillary, pillarie, from Middle English pillory, pillori, pyllery, pullery = Middle Dutch pilorijn, pellarin, from Old French pilori, pilorin, pilerin, pellorin, French pilori (= Portuguese pelourinho), a pillory (cf. Old French pilori, pillory, pillori, a ruff or collar so called, encircling the neck like the boards of a pillory); cf. Middle Latin pilorium, piliorium, pellorium, pilloricum, pellericum, pilaricum, etc. (forms which, like the obsolete English pillary, pillery, etc., simulate a connection with Middle Latin pilare, pilarium, pilorus, a pillar; cf. Old French pille, a pillory, another use of pile, pille, from Latin pila, a pillar), also spiliorium, a pillory (in Middle Latin also called collistrigium), from Provencal espitlori, a pillory (supposed, from the fact that the F. form is evidently borrowed, to have been first used, as the name first arose, in Provence or Spain); perhaps literally ‘window.’ ‘peephole,’ or ‘lookout’ (the prisoner with his head confined in the pillory being humorously regarded as looking out of a window or peephole), from Middle Latin as if *speculatorium, a lookout, place of observation, neuter of Latin speculatorius, of or belonging to spies or to observation, from speculator, one who looks out, a spy, explorer, examiner, Middle Latin (also spiculator) also an under-officer, attendant, jailor, tormentor: see speculator. Cf. Catalan espitllera, a little window, peephole, loophole, from Latin specularia, plural (rarely in singular specular), a window, cf. specularis, of or belonging to a looking-glass or mirror (or to looking), from speculum (later Catalan espill), a looking-glass, mirror: see speculum. Forms corresponding to pillory do not occur in the other languages, the Spanish being picota, Italian berlina, Dutch kaak, German pranger, Danish gabestok, etc.
  2. from pillory, n.
 

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/ˈpɪləri/
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