1. A device used for hanging a person until dead; a gallows.
2. An upright post with a crosspiece, forming a T-shaped structure from which executed criminals were formerly hung for public viewing.
“you,
throwing a gibbet astride the Milky Way,
seize me and string me up, a criminal.
Do what you will.
Quarter me if you will.
—Vladimir Mayakovsky, “The Backbone Flute”