gallows

Gallows are a scaffold or framework used to execute a person by hanging. A typical gallows consists of a horizontal crossbeam supported by two uprights, forming a platform from which a rope with a noose is suspended. In many designs a trap in the platform or a drop mechanism provides the means for the fall and rapid death, though earlier and some modern examples relied on a shorter fall or suspension without an integral drop.

The device has existed since antiquity but became especially associated with the medieval and early modern periods in Europe and in many other regions under colonial influence. Public executions on gallows were carried out as punishment or deterrence and later became more controlled, with formal legal procedures governing timing and secrecy in some eras. The term long drop refers to a method developed in the 19th century to break the neck more quickly and humanely; short-drop versions remained in use elsewhere, depending on jurisdiction and era.

Gallows are sometimes distinguished from gibbet; a gibbet is a device used to display a body after death, and in some usages the term can refer to a related hanging frame. Many gallows structures were dismantled or removed after legal prohibitions on capital punishment; others survive as historical monuments or museum pieces, and a few are still used in jurisdictions where hanging remains a legal method of execution.