castigatory

castigatory (kas-ti-g[schwa]-tor-ee). Hist. A device for punishing scolds by repeatedly plunging them un-derwater. • This device is mentioned by the ancient Saxons (scealfing stole) and in Domesday Book (cathedra stercoralis). It was also used to punish bakers and brewers by ducking them into “stinking water” (stercore), possibly into a midden.

— Also termed ducking stool; cucking stool; trebucket. See SCOLD. Cf. BRANKS.

“[A] common scold, … if convicted, shall be sentenced to be placed in a certain engine of correction called the trebucket, castigatory, or cucking stool, which in the Saxon language signifies the scolding stool; though now it is frequently corrupted into ducking stool, because the residue of the judgment is, that, when she is so placed therein, she shall be plunged in the water for her punishment.” 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 169 (1769).

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