garrote

Garrote (also garrotte) is Spanish, originally meaning a stick or cudgel, then a specific tool: a stick inserted into a loop of rope and twisted to tighten it. The technique — using a stick to twist a cord tight — was used to strangle prisoners. The word evolved from the tool to the method to the formal execution device: an iron collar attached to a post, tightened by a screw or lever mechanism behind the condemned person's neck.

Spain used the garrote as its official method of execution from the early nineteenth century through 1974. The device was considered more 'humane' than hanging because it was (in theory) faster. In practice, the efficiency varied. The garrote vil was the method for common criminals. The garrote noble used a different mechanism for persons of rank. The distinction was as feudal as the device was medieval.

The last execution by garrote in Spain was that of Salvador Puig Antich, an anarchist, and Heinz Chez (Georg Michael Welzel), a convicted murderer, both executed on March 2, 1974. Spain abolished the death penalty in 1978 with the new democratic constitution that followed Franco's death in 1975. The garrote died with the dictatorship.

In English, 'garrote' is both a noun and a verb — to garrote someone is to strangle them from behind with a cord or wire. The word entered English crime and espionage vocabulary in the nineteenth century. It appears in thriller novels and crime reports. The Spanish execution device became an English word for a specific method of killing — from the back, by strangulation, without warning.