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Showing results for hangman's knot. Search instead for hangman-s-knot.

hangman's knot

American  

noun

  1. a slip noose for hanging a person, usually having eight or nine turns around the rope.

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

The two-wrap hangman's knot forms a loop that gives a lure or fly more freedom of movement � and more fish-tempting action.

From Time Magazine Archive

At this point the legal tangle begins to look painfully like a hangman's knot.

From Time Magazine Archive

We are not even on speaking terms; yet he is childless, and may feel some measure of dislike to have the family end in a hangman's knot.

From Wolves of the Sea Being a Tale of the Colonies from the Manuscript of One Geoffry Carlyle, Seaman, Narrating Certain Strange Adventures Which Befell Him Aboard the Pirate Craft "Namur" by Parrish, Randall

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.