cucking-stool Obs. exc. Hist.
(ˈkʌkɪŋ-stuːl)
Forms: 4 coking-, 4– cucking-, 6 cukkyng-, cuckyng-, cooking-; also (by association with cuckquean) 6 coqueen-, 7 cockqueane-stool.
[app. f. cuck v.1 + stool; cf. cuck-stool. Called in the Chester Domesday (I. 262 b) cathedra stercoris (Way, Promp. Parv.). So named from one of its common forms, which was perhaps the original.]
An instrument of punishment formerly in use for scolds, disorderly women, fraudulent tradespeople, etc., consisting of a chair (sometimes in the form of a close-stool), in which the offender was fastened and exposed to the jeers of the bystanders, or conveyed to a pond or river and ducked.
For full account of its history, see Dr. T. N. Brushfield's Obsolete Punishments, II. The Cucking Stool, in Jrnl. of Archit., Archæol., & Hist. Soc. of Chester, vi. 203 (1857–9).
| [1215–70 in Borlase Hist. Cornwall I. 303 (transl.) Brawling women..undergo the punishment of the ‘Coking Stole’.] c 1308 Sat. People Kildare 100 in E.E.P. (1862) 155 Brewesters..beþ i-war of þe coking-stole, þe lak is dep and hori. c 1325 Poem Times Edw. II, 477 in Pol. Songs (Camden) 345 The pilory and the cucking-stol beth i-mad for noht. 1511–2 Act 3 Hen. VIII, c. 6 §1 To be sett upon the pillorie or the Cukkyngstole Man or Woman as the case shall requyre. 1534 in Boys Coll. Hist. Sandwich 684 [Two women] to be placed in the coqueen stool, and dipped to the chin. 1577 Harrison England ii. xi. (1877) i. 228 Scolds are ducked upon cuckingstooles in the water. 1633 in Rushw. Hist. Coll. (1721) III. ii. II. App. 57 She was committed..to be duck'd in a Cucking-Stool at Holborn-Dike. a 1680 Butler Rem. (1759) I. 217 When Pudding-Wives were launcht in cockquean Stools For falling foul on Oyster-women's Schools. 1769 Blackstone Comm. IV. 169 She..shall..be placed in a certain engine of correction called the trebucket, castigatory, or cucking stool..now it is frequently corrupted into ducking stool. 1825 Scott Betrothed ix, Beware the cucking-stool. |