Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Definition: Pillory |
PilloryNoun1. A wooden instrument of punishment on a post with holes for the neck and hands; offenders were locked in and so exposed to public scorn. Verb1. Expose to ridicule or public scorn. 2. Punish by putting in a pillory. Source: WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. |
Date "pillory" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1374. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Satire | PILLORY, n. A mechanical device for inflicting personal distinction -- prototype of the modern newspaper conducted by persons of austere virtues and blameless lives. Source: Devil's Dictionary. |
Literature | Pillory The following eminent men have been put in the pillory for literary offences:- Leighton, for tracts against Charles I.; Lilburn, for circulating the tracts of Dr. Bastwick; Bastwick, for attacking the Church of England; Warton the publisher; Prynne, for a satire on the wife of Charles I.; Daniel Defoe, for a pamphlet entitled The Shortest Way with Dissenters, etc. Source: Brewer's Dictionary. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
The pillory was a device used in punishment by public humiliation, and related to the lesser punishment called the stocks. Both were constructed of hinged wooden boards which articulated to form holes through which the head, or various limbs, could be inserted: once the boards were locked together the limbs could not be withdrawn. They were set up in marketplaces and crossroads: petty criminals would be imprisoned by them by having one or more limbs inserted through holes in the stocks, which were then closed and locked. Often a placard detailing the crime was placed nearby: these punishments lasted one or two hours.Time in the pillory was more dangerous than in the stocks. The pillory used hinged boards, raised on a post, to clamp around the offender's neck and wrists, forcing the malfeasant to remain standing and exposed.
A criminal in the stocks would expect to be abused, but his life would not be at risk, but a prisoner in the pillory would be presumed to have committed a more serious crime and accordingly get a more angry crowd reaction. With hands trapped, he could not protect himself from heavy stones. Blinding and permanent maiming were not unusual consequences. The prisoner might also be subjected to further punishments while in the pillory, such as branding or having an ear cut off.
When Daniel Defoe was placed in the pillory at Charing Cross as a punishment for writing a satire, public sympathy won out over the desire of the government of the day to punish: the crowd threw flowers instead of the more usual vegetables, dead animals and stones.
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Pillory."
Synonyms: PillorySynonyms: stocks (n), gibbet (v). (additional references) |
| Context | Synonyms within Context (source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus). |
Scourge | Pillory, stocks, whipping post; cucking stool, ducking stool; brank; trebuchet, trebuket. |
| Source: adapted from Roget's Thesaurus. | |
Crosswords: Pillory |
| English words defined with "pillory": Jougs ♦ Little-ease ♦ Pilloried, Pillories, Pillorize, Pillorying. (references) |
| Specialty definitions using "pillory": Babes in the Wood ♦ NORWAY NECKCLOTH ♦ OVERSEER, OVERSEERS OF THE NEW PAVEMENT ♦ PENANCE BOARD ♦ STOOP-NAPPERS, SURVEYOR OF THE PAVEMENT ♦ WOODEN RUFF. (references) |
| Etymologies containing "pillory": Brank. (references) |
| Domain | Usage | |
Movie/TV Titles | The Pillory (1916) Prisoner in the Chinese Pillory in the Streets of Tien Tsin (1900) | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | ||
| Domain | Title |
Books | |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Thumbnail | Description & Credit | Thumbnail | Description & Credit |
 | Stocks and pillory outside the restored public gaol, Williamsburg, Virginia. Credit: Library of Congress. |  | Delaware pillory and whipping post. Credit: Library of Congress. |
Source: pictures compiled by the editor from various references; see picture credits. | |||
| Title | Author | Quote |
Scarlet Letter | Hawthorne, Nathaniel | As the sacred edifice was too much thronged to admit another auditor, she took up her position close beside the scaffold of the pillory. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
| "Pillory" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 52.38% of the time. "Pillory" is used about 21 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Noun (singular) | 52.38% | 11 | 106,044 |
| Lexical Verb (infinitive) | 47.62% | 10 | 111,207 |
| Total | 100.00% | 21 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
Expression using "pillory": put in the pillory. Additional references. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. |
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
pillory | 115 |
pillory stock | 18 |
pillory williamsburg | 9 |
boy in pillory | 7 |
bondage pillory | 5 |
gate pillory wharf | 4 |
pillory renfaire stock | 3 |
girl pillory | 3 |
pillory punishment | 3 |
in pillory woman | 3 |
picture pillory | 3 |
pillory stock wooden | 3 |
girl in pillory | 3 |
escape pillory | 2 |
history pillory | 2 |
pillory story | 2 |
pillory spanking | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "pillory"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | |
Albanian | vënie në shtyllën e turpit, vë në shtyllën e ndëshkimi, shtyllë ndëshkimi, ekspozoj në publik. (various references) | |
Arabic | مشهرة آلة خشبية للتعذيب, مشهرة, سخر (befool, chip, debunk, deride, fleer, guy, jape, jeer, kid, lampoon, laugh at, make a game of, make fun of, mimic, mock, monkey, override, persiflage, poke fun, pooh pooh, quip, quiz, rally, rib, ridicule, satirize, scoff, send up, smile, snap, sneer, snigger, taunt, tee-hee, twit), عذب (agonize, agreeable, bedevil, benign, charming, chasten, crucify, devil, dulcet, freshen, grilled, harrow, harry, hearty, leisurely, liquid, murder, palmy, persecute, plague, quiet, rack, rack one's brains, scourge, silken, silky, sleek, smite, smooth, smooth spoken, soft, suave, sweet, sympathetic, tantalize, tease, tender, torment, torture, wrench, wring), المقطرة, آلة خشبية للتعذيب, شهر (give notoriety, illuminate, malign, month, proclaim, slander, vilify). (various references) | |
Bulgarian | позорен стълб (whipping post). (various references) | |
Czech | pranýřovat (censure, crucify, denounce, expose), pranýř (stake). (various references) | |
Farsi | قاپوق . (various references) | |
Finnish | häpeäpaalu. (various references) | |
French | pilori, tourmenter, mettre au pilori, clouer au pilori. (various references) | |
German | Pranger (pillories, stocks). (various references) | |
Greek | κύφων, κλοιόσ (collar, ringer). (various references) | |
Hebrew | לשים בס", לעשות ללע' (travesty), עמו" "קלון, "וקעת פשע, ס" קלון. (various references) | |
Hungarian | pellengér. (various references) | |
Italian | mettere alla berlina, berlina (Berlin, hardtop, limousine, saloon, saloon car, sedan). (various references) | |
Japanese Kanji | 首枷 (a burden, a pillory). (various references) | |
Japanese Katakana | くびかせ (a burden, a pillory). (various references) | |
Manx | stoyl ny ny maarlee, stangey (dam, weir), stang (dowel, gudgeon, stock), cur er y stang. (various references) | |
Pig Latin | illorypay.(various references) | |
Portuguese | pelourinho, levar ao pelourinho, expor no pelourinho, expor irrisão pública. (various references) | |
Romanian | pune la stâlpul infamiei (put in the pillory), stâlp al infamiei. (various references) | |
Russian | выставить на осмеяние. (various references) | |
Serbo-Croatian | stub srama, staviti na stub srama, javna poruga. (various references) | |
Spanish | poner en la picota, picota, exponer a la vergüenza pública. (various references) | |
Swedish | skampåle. (various references) | |
Turkish | rezil etmek (attaint, ball up, bitch, bitch up, bring disgrace on smb., decry, disgrace, dishonor, dishonour, foul up, gibbet, guy, let down, put smb. to shame, ruin, stultify, wreck), rezil etme (disgracing, humiliation), dillere düşürmek (bandy about smb.'s name), boyundurukla teşhir etme, boyundurukla sergilemek, boyunduruk (chain, headlock, itch, lock, oppression, stock, yoke). (various references) | |
Ukrainian | ставити до ганебного стовпа, ганебний стовп (stake), посміховище (derision, joke, laughingstock, mock, mockery, ridicule, scoff, target). (various references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references. | ||
| Language | Period | Translations |
| Sumerian | 3100 BCE-2500 BCE | rab. (various references) |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references. | ||
Derivations | |
Words beginning with "pillory": pillorying. (additional references) | |
| |
"Pillory" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Kilmory, Phillmore, Pilbora, Pilbro, pillary, Pillay, Pilleri, pilliory, pillor, pillowy, plury, psilocyn. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "pillory" (pronounced pi"lerē) |
| 4 | -i" l er ē | artillery, distillery. |
| 3 | -l er ē | burglary, calorie, celery, cutlery, exemplary, Foolery, gallery, salary. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
| Words within the letters "i-l-l-o-p-r-y" | |
-1 letter: pylori, ropily. | |
-2 letters: prill, roily. | |
-3 letters: illy, lily, lory, oily, pill, pily, ploy, poll, poly, rill, roil, roll, ropy, yill. | |
-4 letters: ill, lip, lop, oil, ply, poi, pol, pro, pry, rip, yip. | |
-5 letters: li, lo, op, or, oy, pi, yo. | |
| Words containing the letters "i-l-l-o-p-r-y" | |
+1 letter: prolixly. | |
+2 letters: pellitory. | |
+3 letters: microphyll, orphically, perilously, pillorying, prodigally, proximally, tropically. | |
+4 letters: deploringly, imploringly, lyophilizer, microphylls, parochially, pictorially, prosaically, trophically. | |
+5 letters: compulsorily, entropically, euphorically, hyperbolical, impersonally, lyophilizers, operatically, paranoically, periodically, peritoneally, policyholder, primordially, profligately, prolifically, pronominally, prosodically, proverbially, provincially, pyrophyllite, reciprocally, spheroidally, sporadically, worshipfully. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
| 1. Definition 2. Synonyms 3. Crosswords 4. Usage: Modern | 5. Usage: Commercial 6. Images: Slideshow 7. Images: Photo Album 8. Quotations: Fiction | 9. Usage Frequency 10. Expressions 11. Expressions: Internet 12. Translations: Modern | 13. Translations: Ancient 14. Derivations 15. Rhymes 16. Anagrams | 17. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
