different between tumbrel vs tumbril

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?mb??l/

Noun

tumbrel (plural tumbrels)

1. Alternative form of tumbril

Anagrams

• Trumble, tumbler

English

Alternative forms

• tumbrel

Etymology

From Old French tumberel (in Anglo-Latin tumberellus), from tomber, tumber (“to fall”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?t?mb??l/

Noun

tumbril (plural tumbrils)

1. A kind of medieval torture device, later associated with a cucking stool.
2. A cart which opens at the back to release its load.
   • 1800, The Times, 17 Mar 1800, p.3 col. B:

     They then confined the Dean, while they rifled the house of every valuable article, as well as plate and money; all that was portable they loaded on Mr. Carleton’s own tumbril, to which they harnessed his horse […]
3. A cart used to carry condemned prisoners to their death, especially to the guillotine during the French Revolution.
   • 1848, The Times, 26 Jun 1848, p.4 col. B:

     It is now ascertained that the tumbrel and the torches which figured in the massacre-scene of the 23d of February were prepared beforehand […]

   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 370:

     If there would be former freemasons on the Committee of Public Safety during the Terror, they would be numbered too in the ranks of the émigré armies and counter-revolutionary Chouan rebels, and in tumbrils bound for the guillotine.

4. (Britain, obsolete) A basket or cage of osiers, willows, or the like, to hold hay and other food for sheep.

Translations