Impale
[ɪm'peɪl]
Definition
(verb.) kill by piercing with a spear or sharp pole; 'the enemies were impaled and left to die'.
Typist: Ruben--From WordNet
Definition
(v. t.) To pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake. See Empale.
(v. t.) To inclose, as with pales or stakes; to surround.
(v. t.) To join, as two coats of arms on one shield, palewise; hence, to join in honorable mention.
Editor: Olaf
Definition
v.t. to fence in with stakes: to shut in: to put to death by spitting on a stake.—n. Impale′ment an enclosed space: (her.) the marshalling side by side of two escutcheons combined in one.
Inputed by Byron
Unserious Contents or Definition
v.t. In popular usage to pierce with any weapon which remains fixed in the wound. This however is inaccurate; to impale is properly to put to death by thrusting an upright sharp stake into the body the victim being left in a sitting position. This was a common mode of punishment among many of the nations of antiquity and is still in high favor in China and other parts of Asia. Down to the beginning of the fifteenth century it was widely employed in 'churching ' heretics and schismatics. Wolecraft calls it the 'stoole of repentynge and among the common people it was jocularly known as riding the one legged horse. ' Ludwig Salzmann informs us that in Thibet impalement is considered the most appropriate punishment for crimes against religion; and although in China it is sometimes awarded for secular offences it is most frequently adjudged in cases of sacrilege. To the person in actual experience of impalement it must be a matter of minor importance by what kind of civil or religious dissent he was made acquainted with its discomforts; but doubtless he would feel a certain satisfaction if able to contemplate himself in the character of a weather-cock on the spire of the True Church.
Checked by Aurora