draw and quarter
Verb (transitive): 1. To execute (someone) by tying each limb to a different horse and then driving the horses to pull the person apart. This was a historical method of capital punishment for treason and other severe crimes, intended to be both lethal and a gruesome public spectacle.
This verb is used strictly in a historical or figurative context to describe this specific, brutal form of execution. It is almost always used in the passive voice ("was drawn and quartered") when describing the fate of a person.
- Historical records show that convicted traitors were drawn and quartered.
- The rebel leader was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered.
- (Figurative) The critics drew and quartered the author's new novel, tearing apart every element of its plot and prose.
- The phrase is often part of the longer, formal sequence "hanged, drawn, and quartered," which describes the full traditional punishment: the condemned person was dragged (drawn) to the place of execution, hanged until nearly dead, then disemboweled and quartered (cut into four parts).
- In modern figurative use, "to draw and quarter" can mean to criticize or treat someone with extreme and merciless severity.
- Quarter (verb): In this context, to cut or divide a body into four parts.
- Execution (noun): The carrying out of a sentence of death.
- Dismember (verb): To tear or cut the limbs from.
- Dismember
- Execute (specifically in this brutal manner)
- Tear asunder (literary)
This term refers to a specific historical practice and carries strong connotations of extreme cruelty, barbarity, and public punishment for crimes against the state (like treason). Its modern use is almost exclusively historical or metaphorical.
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pull (a person) apart with four horses tied to his extremities, so as to execute him
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in the old days, people were drawn and quartered for certain crimes
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