stocks
- noun
- /stɑks/
- Archaic
:
tronco
- During the festival, a man was put in the stocks as a humorous attraction for the crowd.
I'm trying to chop his head off stalks, put him in the stocks, throw some lettuce at him.
- I'm trying to chop his head off stalks, put him in the stocks, throw some lettuce at him.
Examples
-
PUT HIM IN THE VILLAGE STOCKS SO THAT ALL THE PEOPLE IN THE DISTRICT CAN LOOK AT HIM AND SEE THAT HE IS NOT MY UNHAPPY BROTHER.
-
OR BEAT YOU OR SET YOU IN THE STOCKS.
-
I'm trying to chop his head off stalks, put him in the stocks, throw some lettuce at him.
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MAN IN STOCKS:
-
The villagers placed the thief in the stocks to humiliate him publicly.
-
As a punishment for his misdeeds, the mayor sentenced the prankster to sit in the stocks for an hour.
Synonyms
3
7.7
Metal cuffs that hold a prisoner's hands or legs together
1
9.9
A wooden frame with holes for the head and hands that holds people for public shame
A heavy wooden collar used to punish and display criminals in public
Surface Forms
Morphology
stocks = stock (transparent) = stock + s
Regular plural formation from 'stock'; this sense is the plural noun for the punitive wooden frame.
Etymology
Stocks goes back to the old English stocc meaning 'log' or 'post', and long ago people were placed in a wooden frame in the town square as a punishment. So stocks came to mean the heavy wooden frame that held a person's feet and sometimes hands while others watched.