Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain "hanging". Hanging has been a common method of capital punishment since medieval times, and is the official execution method in many countries and regions today.
Hanging oneself describes a method of suicide in which a person applies a ligature to the neck and brings about unconsciousness and then death, by means of partial suspension or partial weight-bearing on the ligature. This method has been most often used in prisons or other institutions, where full suspension support is difficult to devise. The earliest known use of the word in this sense was in A.D. 1300.
Read more about Hanging: Methods of Judicial Hanging, As Suicide, Medical Effects, Grammar
Famous quotes containing the word hanging:
“Time, in a folly’s rider, like a county man
Over the vault of ridings with his hound at heel,
Drives forth my men, my children from the hanging south.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“In the eighth, Hermanski smashed a drive to the scoreboard. Henrich backed against the board and leaped either four or fourteen feet into the air. He stayed aloft so long he looked like an empty uniform hanging in its locker. When he came down he had the ball.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“There is no dream of love, however ideal it may be, which does not end up with a fat, greedy baby hanging from the breast.”
—Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867)