strappado

• POS: Noun
• HYPHEN: strap=pa=do

CIDE DICTIONARY

strappado, n. [It. strappata a pull, the strappado, from strappare to pull, from Prov. G. strapfen: cf. G. straff tense, stretched.].

 A military punishment formerly practiced, which consisted in drawing an offender to the top of a beam and letting him fall to the length of the rope, by which means a limb was often dislocated.  Shak.  [1913 Webster]

strappado, v. t. 

 To punish or torture by the strappado.  Milton.  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

strappado, n. (pl. -os) hist. a form of torture in which the victim is secured to a rope and made to fall from a height almost to the ground then stopped with a jerk; an application of this; the instrument used.

Etymology

F (e)strapade f. It. strappata f. strappare snatch

ROGET THESAURUS

strappado

Punishment

N punishment, punition, chastisement, chastening, correction, castigation, discipline, infliction, trial, judgment, penalty, retribution, thunderbolt, Nemesis, requital, penology, retributive justice, lash, scaffold, imprisonment, transportation, banishment, expulsion, exile, involuntary exile, ostracism, penal servitude, hard labor, galleys, beating, flagellation, fustigation, gantlet, strappado, estrapade, bastinado, argumentum baculinum, stick law, rap on the knuckles, box on the ear, blow, stripe, cuff, kick, buffet, pummel, slap, slap in the face, wipe, douse, coup de grace, torture, rack, picket, picketing, dragonnade, capital punishment, execution, lethal injection, the gas chamber, hanging, electrocution, rail-riding, scarpines, decapitation, decollation, garrotte, garrotto, crucifixion, impalement, firing squad, martyrdom, auto-da-fe, noyade, happy dispatch, hara-kiri, seppuku, drinking the hemlock, punishing, penal, punitory, punitive, inflictive, castigatory, punished, Int, a la lanterne!, culpan paena premit comes, eating the bitter bread of banishment, gravis ira regum est semper, sera tamen tacitis paena venit pedibus, suo sibi gladio hunc jugulo.