noose
/nuːs
/noun
1A loop with a running knot, tightening as the rope or wire is pulled and used to trap animals or hang people: he began to choke as the noose tightened about his throat a hangman’s noose figurative the West is exploring ways to tighten the economic noose...
- The dialogue alternatingly sparkles or darkens as various nooses, comic or otherwise, steadily tighten.
- How many businesses will want to spend money making their own nooses?
- With the noose tightening around humanity's neck, the good ship Switchblade Honey is dispatched behind enemy lines, with a simple remit: strike hard, strike fast, and keep moving.
1.1 (the noose) Death by hanging: he earned a reprieve from the noose...
- My dreams for the future have now atrophied to simply ‘keeping the noose at bay.’
- Yet he is one of the three still facing the noose.
- One might have expected criminals awaiting trial to have been especially defensive, doing their best to avoid the noose by shifting blame elsewhere.
verb [with object]
1Put a noose on (someone): she was noosed and hooded, then strangled by the executioner...
- The novitiate, blindfolded and noosed, was brought before them and a gun fired into the air.
- When the hangman came to noose her she knocked him clean out of the cart.
1.1Catch (an animal) with a noose: the animal was eventually noosed and sedated by dog handlers...
- Pitfall traps were placed opportunistically next to logs to supplement noosing and remained there for the entire study.
- Individuals were noosed, measured, weighed, and marked with synthetic paint to ease observation.
1.2Form (a rope) into a noose: Gomez had noosed a coil of rope around his neck...
- A silver-blue rope of sorts was noosed around the creature's throat.
- Six boys found her body with a black chiffon scarf noosed around her neck.
Phrases
put one's head in a noose
Origin
Late Middle English: probably via Old French no(u)s from Latin nodus 'knot'.