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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Stoning

Stone \Stone\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Stoned; p. pr. & vb. n. Stoning.] [From Stone, n.: cf. AS. st?nan, Goth. stainjan.]

  1. To pelt, beat, or kill with stones.

    And they stoned Stephen, calling upon God, and saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
    --Acts vii. 59.

  2. To make like stone; to harden.

    O perjured woman! thou dost stone my heart.
    --Shak.

  3. To free from stones; also, to remove the seeds of; as, to stone a field; to stone cherries; to stone raisins.

  4. To wall or face with stones; to line or fortify with stones; as, to stone a well; to stone a cellar.

  5. To rub, scour, or sharpen with a stone.

Wiktionary
stoning

n. lapidation: punishment by throwing stones, usually resulting in death vb. (present participle of stone English)

WordNet
stoning

n. pelting with stones; punishment inflicted by throwing stones at the victim (even unto death) [syn: lapidation]

Wikipedia
Stoning

Stoning, or lapidation, is a method of capital punishment whereby a group throws stones at a person until they die. No individual among the group can be identified as the one who kills the subject. This is in contrast to the case of a judicial executioner. Slower than other forms of execution, stoning within the context of contemporary Western culture is considered a form of execution by torture.

Stoning is called Rajm (Arabic: ) in Islamic literature, and is a practice found in the United Arab Emirates, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, northern Nigeria, Aceh Province in Indonesia, and parts of Pakistan. In some countries, such as Afghanistan and Iraq, stoning has been declared illegal by the government, but is practiced extrajudicially. In several others, people have been sentenced to death by stoning, but the sentence has not been carried out. In modern times, allegations of stoning are politically sensitive; the government of Iran, for example, describes allegations of stoning as political propaganda.

Usage examples of "stoning".

One gets the impression that since the beginning of time an unending horde of their priests and apostles (or even the gods themselves, it makes little difference) have been crippling across that same desert, the Sinking Land, and the Great Salt Marsh to converge on Lankhmar's low, heavy-arched Marsh Gate—meanwhile suffering by the way various inevitable tortures, castrations, blindings and stonings, impalements, crucifixions, quarterings and so forth at the hands of eastern brigands and Mingol unbelievers who, one is tempted to think, were created solely for the purpose of seeing to the running of that cruel gauntlet.

One gets the impression that since the beginning of time an unending horde of their priests and apostles (or even the gods themselves, it makes little difference) have been crippling across that same desert, the Sinking Land, and the Great Salt Marsh to converge on Lankhmar's low, heavy-arched Marsh Gate -- meanwhile suffering by the way various inevitable tortures, castrations, blindings and stonings, impalements, crucifixions, quarterings and so forth at the hands of eastern brigands and Mingol unbelievers who, one is tempted to think, were created solely for the purpose of seeing to the running of that cruel gauntlet.

Anti-heretical fury spread from Seville to neighboring cities and finally throughout Spain with the terrible consequence that during the summer of 1391 an estimated 10,000 disbelievers were executed, most by beatings and stonings.

Freedom of religion, representative democracy, religious and ethnic tolerance, equality of the sexes, rule of law, free speech—these things aren’t just different from beheadings and stonings and autocracy—they’re better.