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ess. Hallam. Criminal action (Law), an action or suit instituted to secure conviction and punishment for a crime. -- Criminal conversation (Law), unlawful intercourse with a married woman; adultery; -- usually abbreviated, crim. con. -- Criminal law, the law which relates to crimes.

oss, for the purpose of putting him to death; the use of the cross as a method of capital punishment.

A kind of chair formerly used for punishing scolds, and also dishonest tradesmen, by fastening them in it, usually in front of their doors, to be pelted and hooted at by the mob, but sometimes to be taken to the water and ducked; -- called also a castigatory, a tumbrel, and a trebuchet; and often, but not so correctly,…

t. What pease will be given To us enslaved, but custody severe, And stripes and arbitrary punishment Milton.

A punishment sometimes used by the ancients, consisting in the besmearing of the criminal with honey, and exposing him to insects. It is still in use among some Oriental nations.

To condemn; to declare guilty; to doom; to adjudge to punishment; to sentence; to censhure. He shall not live; look, with a spot I damn him. Shak.

Condemnation to everlasting punishment in the future state, or the punishment itself. How can ye escape the damnation of hell Matt. xxiii. 33. Wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Shak.

Sentenced to punishment in a future state; condemned; consigned to perdition.

To select by lot and punish with death every tenth man of; as, to decimate a regiment as a punishment for mutiny. Macaulay.

A selection of every tenth person by lot, as for punishment. Shak.

To point out as deserving of reprehension or punishment, etc.; to accuse in a threatening manner; to invoke censure upon; to stigmatize. Denounced for a heretic. Sir T. More. To denounce the immoralities of Julius Cæsar. Brougham.

unworthy use; -- the opposite of consecrate. The [Russian] clergy can not suffer corporal punishment without being previously desecrated. W. Tooke. The founders of monasteries imprecated evil on those who should desecrate their donations. Salmon.

That which is deserved; the reward or the punishment justly due; claim to recompense, usually in a good sense; right to reward; merit. According to their deserts will I judge them. Ezek. vii. 27. Andronicus, surnamed Pius For many good and great deserts to Rome. Shak. His reputation falls far below his desert. A. Hamil…

To punish; to discipline. [Obs.] B. Jonson.

Liable or deserving to be disciplined; subject to disciplinary punishment; as, a disciplinable offense.

Severe training, corrective of faults; instruction by means of misfortune, suffering, punishment, etc. A sharp discipline of half a century had sufficed to educate Macaulay.

Rigorous; stringent; harsh. [Obs.] Punishing with the rod of district severity. Foxe.

ors, or Within doors, within the house. -- Next door to, near to; bordering on. A riot unpunished is but next door to a tumult. L'Estrange. -- Out of doors, or Without doors, and, colloquially, Out doors, out of the house; in open air; abroad; away; lost. His imaginary title of fatherhood is out of doors. Locke. -- To…

a stool or chair in which common scolds were formerly tied, and plunged into water, as a punishment. See Cucking stool. The practice of ducking began in the latter part of the 15th century, and prevailed until the early part of the 18th, and occasionally as late as the 19th century. Blackstone. Chambers.…

Punishment by cutting out the tongue.