Garroters

Part of speech: noun, verb

Definitions

1. Individuals who strangle or choke victims using a cord or wire; criminals who commit murder or assault by compressing the neck; tools or devices used for manual strangulation
2. Persons engaged in killing or attacking by tightly wrapping a ligature around the throat; offenders who incapacitate or kill through neck compression; instruments designed to constrict the neck forcibly
3. Assailants who execute strangulation crimes by applying pressure with a cord; perpetrators who cause harm or death via ligature strangulation; mechanical aids employed to silence or subdue victims through neck constriction

Etymology: "Garroters" is the plural of "garroter," a noun from the verb "garrote," which came into English in the 1820s from Spanish "garrote," meaning a cord or stick used to twist a rope or to strangle. The Spanish word itself is of uncertain origin, with some sources linking it to a Gallo-Romance root for a stick or cudgel, and it was borrowed into English largely through accounts of Spanish execution methods. The garrote was an iron collar tightened with a screw, used in Spain to execute prisoners by strangulation. The English word moved from that formal execution device to street crime. In the 1850s, reports of violent muggings in London, where attackers looped a cord or arm around a victim's throat from behind, led to the verb "to garrote" being applied to these assaults. The noun "garroter" then named the person carrying out the attack, and by the 1860s British newspapers used the term widely for the wave of such robberies.

Synonyms: stranglers, chokers, throttlers, suffocators, smothers