ducking stool


noun
  1. a former instrument of punishment consisting of a chair in which an offender was tied to be plunged into water.

Origin of ducking stool

1
First recorded in 1590–1600

Words Nearby ducking stool

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use ducking stool in a sentence

  • This ducking stool was intended for the special benefit of vixens and scolding wives.

  • He conceived the grotesque idea that the ducking-stool would be about the thing.

    The Cassowary | Stanley Waterloo
  • It was the law, made and provided, that a ducking-stool should be set up "neere the court-house in every county."

    Virginia: The Old Dominion | Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
  • We had not known that it was a place of such associations as the words "Ducking-stool Point" indicated.

    Virginia: The Old Dominion | Frank W. Hutchins and Cortelle Hutchins
  • He hath much too wholesome a regard for the ducking-stool to cause further mischief.

    Contemporary One-Act Plays | Sir James M. Barrie

British Dictionary definitions for ducking stool

ducking stool

noun
  1. history a chair or stool used for the punishment of offenders by plunging them into water

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012