Definitions

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun a form of torture in which the hands are tied behind a person's back and they are lifted off the ground by a rope tied to their wrists, then allowed to drop until their fall is checked with a jerk by the rope

Etymologies

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Examples

  • Torture techniques inflicted on victims such as Naheem and Rehan include falaka (foot whipping with a rod or cane), the pulling out of fingernails with pliers, the rubbing of hot chillies in eyes, endless beatings with sticks, and an excruciating practice called strapado, where the victim is hung by the wrists from the ceiling until the shoulders dislocate.

    The Guardian World News Owen Watkins 2010

  • “And now, my good friend of the Mist,” said he, “can you tell me what has become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him since he assisted me to disarm after the action, a negligence which deserveth the strapado?”

    A Legend of Montrose 2008

  • I promise you there was little need of the strapado in his regiment, for there was not a man who did not fear the look of sorrow in his Colonel's eyes far more than he did the provost-marshal. '

    Micah Clarke His Statement as made to his three grandchildren Joseph, Gervas and Reuben During the Hard Winter of 1734 Arthur Conan Doyle 1894

  • "And now, my good friend of the Mist," said he, "can you tell me what has become of your hopeful grandson, as I have not seen him since he assisted me to disarm after the action, a negligence which deserveth the strapado?"

    A Legend of Montrose Walter Scott 1801

  • While he is bound, as we say, to keep his shop, he is like the galley-slave chained down to the oar; he tugs and labours indeed, and exerts the utmost of his strength, for fear of the strapado, and because he is obliged to do it; but when he is on shore, and is out from the bank, he abhors the labour, and hates to come to it again.

    The Complete English Tradesman (1839 ed.) Daniel Defoe 1696

  • Un paureo strapado -- plump and rich, no, no, the Ecclesiastico meet un paureo strapado -- and begs a Julio.

    The Works of Aphra Behn, Volume II Aphra Behn 1664

  • May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, never piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise warmed than by the bastinado.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, never piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise warmed than by the bastinado.

    Five books of the lives, heroic deeds and sayings of Gargantua and his son Pantagruel 2002

  • May you never shit till you be soundly lashed with stirrup leather, never piss but by the strapado, nor be otherwise warmed than by the bastinado.

    Gargantua and Pantagruel, Illustrated, Book 3 Fran��ois Rabelais 1518

  • a very sharpe answere, and sayd we should be better sifted before it were long, and that they had further matter against vs. Whereupon we presently determined rather to seeke our liberties, then to bee in danger for euer to be slaues in the countrey, for it was told vs we should haue the strapado.

    The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 10 Asia, Part III Richard Hakluyt 1584

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