garrote

noun

1. (historical)An iron collar formerly used in Spain to execute people by strangulation.

   “I have twenty times done that which by Busnée law should have brought me to the filimicha (gallows), yet my neck has never yet been squeezed by the cold garrote.”

   “[…] promising that, by so doing, the painful death to which he had been sentenced should be commuted for the milder form of the garrote,—a mode of punishment by strangulation, used for criminals in Spain.”

   “The prison, scaffold, garrote, handcuffs, iron necklace and leadballs do their work, / The named and unnamed heroes pass to other spheres,”

   “The Spanish had responded to the insurgency with characteristic brutality. They gave rebels the "usual four shots in the back" or the garrote—an iron collar tightened around the victim's neck with a screw until he was strangled to death.”

2. Something, especially a cord or wire, used for strangulation.

   “The mob boss was known for having his enemies executed with a garrote of piano wire.”

verb

1. (transitive)To execute by strangulation, to kill using a garrote.

   “I have not a sou, and for want of a few crowns I shall be garroted within a month unless I can escape, though, as I told you before, I have done nothing, a mere bagatelle; but the worst crimes in Spain are poverty and misery.”

2. (transitive)To suddenly render insensible by semi-strangulation, and then to rob.

   ““And then Lee may have fallen into the river, and Norton been garrotted. It is certainly a formidable indictment that you have against Bellingham; but if you were to place it before a police magistrate, he would simply laugh in your face.””

   “About this time the police reports were full of cases of garrotting. The victim was seized from behind, one man gagged or burked him, while another picked his pocket.”