tumbrel (tumbrel)

[Also tumbril, and formerly tumbrell, tumrell; What stinking scavenger (if so he will, Though streets be fair) but may right easily fill His dungy tumbrel ? Marston, Satires, iv. 13. Along the Paris streets the death-carts rumble hollow and harsh. Six tumbrils carry the day's wine to La Guillotine. Dickens, Tale of Two Cities, iii. 15. A yoke of starveling steers, in a tumbril cart, the wheels of which were formed from a solid block of wood. S. Judd , Margaret, i. 4. 2. A covered cart with two wheels, which accompanies artillery, for the conveyance of tools, ammunition, etc.-3. A chair fixed on a pair of wheels and having very long shafts, used to punish scolds. On its being wheeled into a pond backward, and suddenly tilted up, the woman was plunged into the water. Compare cucking - stool and ducking -stool. In this town [Shepton-Mallet, Whit stone, Somersets hire] was anciently a tumbrell or cucking-stool, set up... in the time of Henry III. for the correction of unquiet women. J. Collins on, Hist. Somersets hire (ed. 1791), III. 460. 4. A sort of circular cage or crib, made of osiers or twigs, used in some parts of England for holding food for sheep in winter. tumefacient (tū-me-fa's hient), a. Swelling: swollen. The infant had grown unctuous and tumefacient Bret Harte, By Shore and Sedge, p. 73. under the ki es and embraces of half the hotel.