Crossword clues for electrocution
The Collaborative International Dictionary
electrocution \electrocution\ n.
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execution by electricity.
Note: Electrocution as a form of punishment for crime is usually carried out while the victim is sitting in a chair specially designed for the purpose, called an electric chair, fitted with electrodes that contact the head and limbs. To be executed in such a manner is sometimes referred to in grim humor as to ride the lightning.
Syn: burning.
killing by electric shock.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
"execution by electricity," 1889, American English; noun of action from electrocute. Meaning "any death by electricity" is from 1897.\n\nElectrocution, unless better performed than in the first instance, is a retrograde step rather than the contrary. The preliminary arrangements: the shaving of the head, the cutting of the clothing, the strapping in a chair, add much to the horror of the occasion. It is safe to say that electrocution is not the coming method of execution.
["The Medical Era," vol. vii, no. 9, Sept. 1890]
Wiktionary
n. 1 The accidental death or suicide by electric shock. 2 Deliberate execution by electric shock, usually involving an electric chair. 3 (context informal deprecated English) A severe electric shock, whether fatal or not.
WordNet
n. execution by electricity [syn: burning]
killing by electric shock
Wikipedia
Electrocution is death caused by electric shock, electric current passing through the body. The word is derived from "electro" and "execution", but it is also used for accidental death. The word is also sometimes used to describe non-fatal injuries due to electricity. The term "electrocution," was coined in 1889 by US newspapers just before the first use of the electric chair in 1890, originally referred only to electrical execution (from which it is a portmanteau word), and not to accidental or suicidal electrical deaths. However, since no English word was available for non-judicial deaths due to electric shock, the word "electrocution" eventually took over as a description of all circumstances of electrical death from the new commercial electricity.
Usage examples of "electrocution".
She had killed nine people - no, not that many - the first two, the AA man and the boy with the bazouki, she had only assisted at their deaths, which she had taken as signs that she was on the right track - a track which had led her beyond all mathematical equivocation to seven indisputable murders, by knife, by poison, by gunshot, by electrocution .
Holding that the infliction of the death penalty by electrocution was comparable to none of the latter, the Court refused to interfere with the judgment of the State legislature that such a method of executing the judgment of a court was humane.
His near electrocution opened up the floodgates and made him, truly, my mother.
The vertigo did not entirely pass, but Rya came out onto the frame above me, waiting for me to move down and out of her way, and lightning flashed again to remind me of the danger of electrocution, so I drove myself off the spoke, to the crossbeam under it.
It contained a clipping from his hometown paper, the Southern Illinoisan, about the accidental electrocution of one Ivar McCray.
Joe Deets had predicted the problem halfway through the party given by the Meadows family in the main lounge of the Manse a week after Rolf Wintergarten had brought his bride into the community, some three years after his childless wife, Angela, had died of electrocution when a sudden southern thunderstorm had draped live wires across her Mustang.
In any big utility company, electrocutions are rare but inevitably they happen-usually several times a year.