bilboes
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English
Etymology
Unknown. Purported to have been invented in Bilbao, Spain, yet the device's name predates the Spanish Armada that supposedly imported it.
Pronunciation
Noun
bilboes pl (plural only)
- An iron bar fitting around the ankles of prisoners, and having sliding shackles.
- c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, line 2505 (Folio 1, 1623):
- me thought I lay
Worse then the mutines in the Bilboes, rashly,
- me thought I lay
- 2001, Glen David Gold, Carter Beats The Devil:
- The bilboes looked like handcuffs that went around the ankles. The prisoner lay flat on his back, in the dirt, his feet suspended in the air by a length of iron bar to which the bilboes were fastened.
- c. 1600, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, line 2505 (Folio 1, 1623):