Tyburn n.
sited near what is now Marble Arch, the village of Paddington, the principal site of public executions in London between 1388–1783, when it was replaced by Newgate; not sl. as such but occurring in many combs. below; also attrib.
![[UK]](/static/img/flags/uk.png "United Kingdom") | Piers Plowman’s Vision (B) XII line 190: That hap take fro Tybourne twenty strong theues. | |
| Bowge of Courte line 416: Unthryftynes in hym may well be shewed, For whom Tyborne groneth both daye and nyghte. | |
| Hickscorner Aiv: At Tyburne there standeth the gret frame And some take a fall that maketh theyr neck lame. [Ibid.] Civ: By cryst I recke not a feder Euen now I was dubbed a knyght Where at Tybourne of the collar And of the stewes I am made controller Of all the houses of lechery. | |
| Cocke Lorelles Bote Biii: And hary halter seler at tyborn the ayer. | |
| Epigrams upon Proverbs lvi: Thou art at an ebbe in Newgate, thou hast wrong. / But thou shalt be a flote at Tyburne ere long. | |
| Like Will to Like 18: Even Thomas-a-Waterings or Tyburn Hill To the falsest thief of you both, by my father’s will. | |
| Tyde taryeth no Man in (1863) II 14: Some by Corage, now and then, / at Tiborne make their will . | |
![[Ire]](/static/img/flags/ire.png "Ireland") | Of Virgil his Æneis II: A brasse bold merchaunt in causes dangerus hardye [...] certeyn for knauerye to purchase a Tyburne. | |
| Three Lords and Three Ladies of London J 3: My lords, I beseech ye that at Tyborne he may totter. | |
| Eastward Ho! V v: So shall you thrive by little and little, / ’Scape Tyburn, Counters, and the Spital! | |
| Devil’s Last Will and Testament E: I giue toward the mending of the High-waies betweene New-gate and Tyburne. | |
| The Wandering Jew 66: My right name is Tey-Bourne, and not Tiburne. Bourne signifies a River; and the River Tey, runs by me, sending his loue in Pipes to Holbourne: So, Tey-bourne feeds Holbourne, and Holbourne, Tiburne. | |
| Lady Alimony III iii: Wee’d better ten times fight a Foe / Than once for all to Tyburn go. | |
| ‘The Second Part’ Rump Poems and Songs (1662) II 107: Duckenfield’s in a pittifull Case [...] And he’s thrown Aums Ace, / Tyburn owes him a reproach. | |
| Sauny the Scot III i: You are in the right Sauny, for ’twas one with Three Leggs, ’twas Mr. Tyburn, for he was fairly Hang’d. | |
![[Scot]](/static/img/flags/sco.png "Scotland") | ‘Devol’s Last Farewell’ in Broadside Ballads No. 77: Then Sentence pass’d, without delay, / The Halter fast, and Tybourn last. | |
 | A Song Upon Information n.p.: Informing of a late’s a Notable Trade; For he that his Neighbour intends to invade, May pack him to Tyburn (no more’s to be said) [...] You’re sure, by precise information, to swing. | |
| ‘The Claret Bottle’ in Pills to Purge Melancholy I 198: At old Tyburn they never needed to swing, / Had they been but true Subjects to Drink with, & their King. | |
| Artifice Act III: If you were exalted according to your Merit, you’d take your Degree at Tyburn. | |
| Derby Mercury 4 Dec. 2/3: William Dewell (mention’d in our last to have been hanged at Tyburn, but since come to life again). | |
| Chrysal II 55: You will never leave off, till these rides bring you a ride in a cart to Tyburn. | |
| Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 148: ‘A pack of rascals,’ cried the duke; ‘Tories, Jacobites, rebels; one half of them would wag their heels at Tyburn, if they had their desert.’. | |
| ‘Bozzy & Piozzi’ Works (1794) I 351: He is not equal to a Tyburn Speech. | |
| Comical Cheats of Swalpo 20: See him! [...] I’ll see him in Newgate, I’ll see him at Tyburn, with a vengeance to him. | |
| Black-Ey’d Susan I iii: You have a most Tyburn-like phisiognomy! – there’s Turpin in the curl of your upper lip – Jack Shepherd in the under one [...] and as for your chin, why Sixteen-string Jack lives again in it. | |
| ‘Christopher Snub’ in New Monthly Mag. Sept.–Dec. 190: His tree of social liberty was the tree that grew at Tyburn: the Gordian knot of policy, a nice new hempen halter. | |
| Cork Examiner 5 Jan. 4/5: I shall be accused of wishing to bring back Tyburn and the Trippletree. | |
| Tramp-Royal on the Toby 117: At the base period of its coining it stood for [...] Tyburn for the tree. |
In compounds
a criminal, destined to be hanged at Tyburn.
| Orange Girl II 14: I never did like to think that I should be the widow of a Tyburn bird. |
a young thief or pickpocket.
| Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Tyburne Blossom A young thief or Pickpocket who in time will ripen into fruit borne by the Deadly Never Green. | |
| , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn). |
| Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1786]. | |
| Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue. | |
| Pelham III 295: The cove is a bob cull, and [...] as pretty a Tyburn blossom as ever was brought up to ride a horse foaled by an acorn. | |
| Morn. Post 27 Dec. 3/4: The pantomime [...] is called ‘Harlequin Jack Sheppard, or the Blossom of Tyburn Tree’. | |
| Dumfries & Galoway Standard 22 July 2/2: When he swung at Tyburn (‘the blossom that hung on the bough’) hung there, a miracle of veracity. | |
![[US]](/static/img/flags/us.png "United States") | Vocabulum. | |
![[Aus]](/static/img/flags/aus.png "Australia") | Aus. Sl. Dict. 90: Tyburn blossom. |
a hangman’s noose.
| Magnyfycence line 910: A Tyborne checke Shall breke his necke. |
a fringe of beard worn under the chin.
| Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn). | |
| , , | | Sl. Dict. |
a miserable face.
| Cocke Lorelles Bote Ci: Tyburne collopes and peny pryckers. |
a miserable, down-in-the-mouth look.
| Love for Love II i: Has he not a rogue’s face? [...] A hanging look to me; of all my boys the most unlike me. A has a damned Tyburn face. | |
| Public Advertiser (London) 13431 n.p.: Vernon the first appeared with Gibbet Grace / the second, Mattocks, with less Tyburn Face. | |
| Parody on the Rosciad 15: Convinc’d that W---n’s Tyburn face, / Would do great honour to the place. | |
| ‘The Lousiad’ Works (1794) I 230: With goggling eyes, black beards, and Tyburn faces. | |
| Freeman’s Jrnl 5 June 3/3: His description of a man as having as ‘Tyburn face,’ and that slight twist in his neck suggested... |
1. a wig with its foretop combed forward over the eyes. Such wigs were esp. popular among the underworld; thus Tyburn-topped adj.
| ‘Thed Adventures of Black Bob Wig’ in Lloyd’s Evening Post (London) 24-27 Aug. n.p.: My Tyburn top was totally re-mounted and my side wings [...] were reduced to their original obedience. | |
| Cozeners in Works (1799) II 153: Were you to see him [...] in his Tyburn-topp’d wig, tight boots, and round hat. | |
| , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Tyburn Top, or Foretop. A wig with the foretop combed over the eyes in a knowing style; such being much worn by the gentlemen pads, scamps, divers, and other knowing hands. |
| True Briton 6 Mar. n.p.: The Wig Club having lost [...] eighteen of its most ornamental curls, is now decgraded to a mere Scratch, with a Tyburn Top. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1788]. |
2. a hairstyle associated with criminals.
| Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc. 216: Tyburn-top — the hair combed over the forehead with a curl betwixt the eye and the ear; up underneath the former the cuticle is pushed, wrinkling (sure sign of fear,) in order to smoothen the muscle which consciousness of crime engenders about the eyes. Name disused; practice continued. |
a hanging.
| Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie (1878) 214: Where cocking Dads make sawsie lads, / In youth so rage, to beg an age, / Or else to fetch a Tibourne stretch. |
a hangman’s noose.
| Leeds intelligencer 20 Nov. 4/1: So many French Rgues, deserving to swing, / Are collar’d by Ribbons instead of a String / Upon Tyburn-tree. |
a branding on the thumb with a ‘T’, for Tyburn .
| Sheffield Eve. Teleg. 29 Sept. 4/4: His subsequent branding at Newgate in the thumb with the T of Tyburn. | |
| Western Daily Press 4 Apr. 5/5: He was branded on the thumb with the letter T, known as the Tyburn T. |
a hangman’s noose.
| Knave of Hearts 42: Another closely picking lockes, Never regarding hang-man’s feare, Till Tiburne-tiffany he weare. |
a hangman’s noose.
| 2nd Sermon before Edward VI (Arb.) 63: He should haue had a Tiburne tippet, a halpeny halter, and all suche proude prelates . | |
| ‘A Thiefe’ in Works (1869) II 115: Vntil at last, to weare (it be his hap), / A Tiburne Tippet, or old Stories Cap. | |
| [ | | Church Hist. 139: But Absaloms Mule not onely bears his Master to that place, but when all was ready for Execution, runs from under him [...] as the Cart at Tyburn drives away when the Tippet is fast about the Necks of the Condemned]. |
| Hist. of Highwaymen &c. 139: ’Tis that makes Gentlemen of the Pad, as I am, wear a Tyburn Tippet, or old Storey’s Cap on some Country Gallows. | |
| General Eve Post (London) 8-10 July n.p.: An ungodly slanderer, a grey-headed enemy to all righteousness, a liar of the most gigantic magnitude, a blind guide, a Pelagian Methodist, a temporizing weathercock, a wretch, a superannuated politician, a living lump of inconsistencies, &tc., entitled to a Tyburn tippet as richly as any of his neighbours. | |
| , | | Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn) n.p.: Tyburn Tippet. A halter; see Latimer’s sermon before. Edward VI. A. D. 1549. |
| Morn. Post (London) Jan. 18 n.p.: May the Tyburn Tippet become a fashionable wear among the Friends of Reform this Winter. | |
| Lex. Balatronicum. | |
| Kenilworth I 49: Why, thou gallows-bird [...] hast thou the assurance to expect countenance from any one whose neck is beyond the compass of a Tyburn tippet? | |
| ‘Scene in a London Flash-Panny’ Vocabulum 101: I suppose you’ll be asking me in a week or so to hold out my gorge for a Tyburn tippet. | |
| Westmorland Gaz. 2 Dec. 3/2: The one clergyman in full canonicals suggested a Tyburn tippet rather than a wedding knot. | |
| Sl. Dict. 332: Tyburn tippet in the old hanging days, Jack Ketch’s rope. | |
| Manchester Courier 4 June 9/2: Marry, I shall see thee swing in a Tyburn tippet yet. | |
| Burnley Exp. 8 Aug. 4/8: The halter [...] was known as a ‘Tyburn tippet’. |
see Tyburn foretop
the gallows sited at Tyburn; also attrib.
| Mercurius Democritus 28 Sept. - 5 Oct. 1: Im midst of Plenty some complaine, / content they cannot bee. / When they have levell’d Salsb’ry plaine, / then down goes Tyburn Tree. | |
| ‘The Prentices’ Answer to the Whores’ Petition’ in Bagford Ballads (1878) II 510: And all men know it is a dangerous thing / At the Tiburnian Tree to take a Swing. | |
| Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) v: Of the thousands who daily pass from Oxford Street into the Edgware Road few know that they are traversing the site of Tyburn Tree. | |
| Beggar’s Opera III xiii: Since Laws were made for ev’ry Degree, / To curb Vice in others, as well as in me, / I wonder we han’t better Company / Upon Tyburn Tree! | |
| Lottery 23: Ah, who cou’d see, / On Tyburn Tree / You swinging in the Air. | |
| Caledonian mercury 9 Oct. 2/1: What Pity thou, at Tyburn Tree, must die! | |
| Sir Launcelot Greaves II 206: You are not the first, so neither will you be the last to swing on Tyburn-tree. | |
| ‘Miss Roach & Jack Ran’s Parting’ Buck’s Delight 3: Farewell my dear, farewell Miss Roach, / Since Tyburn’s tree must part us. | |
| ‘Lyric Odes’ Works (1794) I 130: The man condemn’d on Tyburn-tree to swing. | |
| Staffs. Advertiser 31 Aug. 3/1: His father hung on Tyburn tree, / His mother too, transported she. | |
| York Herald 5 Feb. 3/3: Whenever I pass the three-footed Tribune of Justice without Micklegate-Bar (Oh, Tyburn Tree!) my heart recoils. | |
| Leeds intelligencer 20 Nov. 4/1: So many French Rgues, deserving to swing, / Are collar’d by Ribbons instead of a String . Upon Tyburn-tree. | |
| Morn. Chron. 25 Sept. 3/3: For if rich men like us were to swing, / ’Twould thin the land such numbers to string upon Tyburn tree! | |
| Heart of London II i: Cracksmen, buzmen, scampsmen, we [...] We frisk so rummy, / And ramp so plummy, / In spite of the Tyburn tree. | |
| ‘Nell Cook’ Ingoldsby Legends (1842) 129: The two were hang’d on Tyburn tree. | |
| Lavengro II 102: Gentleman Harry [...] is about to be carted along this street to Tyburn tree; but then I remembered that Tyburn tree had long since been cut down. | |
| Glasgow Herald 17 Dec. 2/2: The dread Tyburn tree [...] Few of the many person who daily pass the spot where Tyburn Tree, and afterwards Tyburn gate, once stood, remember [etc.]. | |
| Chronicles of Newgate 70: The print is interesting as one of the first representations of the Tyburn tree. | |
| Sunderland Dly Echo 26 Apr. 4/1: They made one more journey in the death cart to Tyburn Tree. | |
| Morpeth Herald 30 Mar. 6/3: At last the cart stopped at the grim ‘Tyburn tree’. | |
| Cornishman 22 Apr. 3/8: The stone tablet marking the spot on which Tyburn Tree stood. | |
| Hull Dly Mail 9 Dec. 9/2: The actual site where for ages stood ‘Tyburn’s Doleful Tree’ — the gallows. | |
| Dundee Courier 24 June 7/4: He was kneeling at the stone tablet which marks the site of Tyburn Treee. | |
| ‘Bubbles’ of the Old Kent Road 41: We would not kill him either at Wandsworth by the humane killer, or even in the good old-fashioned spectacular way near Marble Arch of the Tyburn Tree fame. | |
| Dead Men’s Wages (2003) 127: At Number 49 Connaught Square the two uprights and crossbeam of Tyburn Tree gallows had once stood. |
In phrases
to be hanged.
| ‘The Song of the Young Prig’ in James Catnach (1878) 172: If I’m not lagged to Virgin-nee, / I may a Tyburn show be. |
see under dance v.
see under dance v.
see under dangle v.
to be hanged.
| (ref. to 1707) Cork Examiner 5 Jan. 4/5: Mr Samuel Hall [...] more than half intoxicated and objurgating the ordinary and finally ‘going up stairs’ at Tyburn. |
to be hanged .
| Interlude of Youth line 253: riot.: The Mayor of London sent for me Forth of Newgate for to come For to preach at Tyburn. youth: By Our lady, he did promote thee To make thee preach at the gallow-tree. But, sir, how diddest thou scape? | |
| Steele Glas Ci: That Souldiours sterue, or prech at Tiborne crosse . |
to be hanged.
| Beggar’s Opera III xv: Air LXVIII. All you that must take a Leap, &c. | |
| (con. early 17C) Sl. and Its Analogues 168/2: To take a leap at Tyburn (or in the dark), to be hanged (1600). |