bilboes

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

John Smith, of Medford, for ſwearing, being penitent, was ſet in bilboes.

From The Olden Time Series, Vol. 5: Some Strange and Curious Punishments Gleanings Chiefly from Old Newspapers of Boston and Salem, Massachusetts by Brooks, Henry M. (Henry Mason)

Soon another colonist felt the bilboes for “selling peeces and powder and shott to the Indians,” ever a bitterly-abhorred and fiercely-punished crime.

From Curious Punishments of Bygone Days by Earle, Alice Morse

Shakspeare mentions Hamlet thinking of a kind of fighting, "That would not let me sleep: methought, I lay Worse than the mutines in the bilboes."

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Belcher, Edward, Sir

The bilboes is a bar of iron with fetters annexed to it, by which mutinous or disorderly sailors were anciently linked together.

From Folk-lore of Shakespeare by Thiselton-Dyer, Thomas Firminger

I would not be over-severe upon the bilboes in their special use in those early colonial settlements.

From Curious Punishments of Bygone Days by Earle, Alice Morse