1926: Tyburn (slang) Mar 24, 2020

Tyburn is now a part of central London, but its name was once synonymous with execution. From at least 1186 until the 18th century, public executions of those processed from Newgate prison all took place there, but what made it stand out was the 'Tyburn Tree', an early form of the gallows allowing large-scale, and so often political executions to take place with such notoriety that it became essentially like slang.
Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

833: Structure and Inflection Mar 20, 2017

1048: No Subjects in Ergative Languages Oct 22, 2017

850: cygnet Apr 6, 2017