(n.) A piece of any structure which is fitted or framed crosswise.
(n.) A bar or timber connecting two knightheads or two bitts.
Example Sentences:
(1) He then fell with the 100 pound crosspiece on his back and was unable to break the fall because his outstretched hands were tied to the crosspiece.
(2) During locomotion on a flat surface and walking on crosspieces of a horizontal ladder the activity of 56 motor cortex neurons in the cat (5 identified cortico-spinal and 6 cortico-rubral neurons among them) was modulated in the rhythm of steps, i.e.
(3) The cell wall was found to be 20--25 nm thick and to consist of a rigid layer bound to the cytoplasmic membrane with crosspieces.
(4) A second suture can be attached to the proximal limb of the crosspiece to extract it end-on at a latter date without enlarging the tract.
(5) The ocular asymmetry measuring device comprises a headband, a ruler, and a T-shaped crosspiece.
(6) Because the crosspiece and the stem are held together with sutures, they can be aligned over a catheter and guide wire for atraumatic insertion into the bile duct.
Gibbet
Definition:
(n.) A kind of gallows; an upright post with an arm projecting from the top, on which, formerly, malefactors were hanged in chains, and their bodies allowed to remain asa warning.
(n.) The projecting arm of a crane, from which the load is suspended; the jib.
(v. t.) To hang and expose on a gibbet.
(v. t.) To expose to infamy; to blacken.
Example Sentences:
(1) Today, they pitch up outside Buxton Opera House, unpack an 8ft effigy of Big Ben and an even bigger gibbet, and – oh, yes – hang parliament.
(2) If I was King and he was my jester he'd be off to the gibbet."
(3) Why not neighborhood bowling leagues, usury and the gibbet?
(4) Charles Dickens, ever the reforming voyeur, wrote: "The horrors of the gibbet and of the crime which brought the wretched murderers to it faded in my mind before the atrocious bearing, looks, and language of the assembled spectators."
(5) The bodies of some of the accused were hung from gibbets in public, the most severe form of punishment under Saudi-administered sharia law and similar to crucifixion.
(6) Any corpses that were found guilty – after due consideration of the evidence – had to be drawn to a gibbet and hung there by the feet for 24 hours, before being hurled into the town cesspit.
(7) Instead they were tied to gibbets in the Humber estuary at low tide and left helplessly to watch the return of the tide that would eventually drown them.