Talk:Tripalium

Evidence[edit]

This word does not appear in Lewis and Short: is it real? Diomedea Exulans (talk) 09:15, 25 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Lewis and Short is just classical Latin. From the cited Language Log post, an OED extract: "held by Romanic scholars generally to represent a late pop.L. or Com. Rom. *trepāliāre, deriv. of trepālium (582 A.D. in Du Cange), an instrument or engine of torture (prob. f. L. trēs, tria three + pālus stake, being so named from its structure)". The Language Log post goes into a fair bit more detail (although they don't fully get to the bottom of the matter). Kingdon (talk) 20:30, 27 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Literal versus Figurative Translation of "fiery animal"[edit]

At the time of my writing, the Wikipedia page on the Tripalium explain that it was used to restrain "fiery animals". "fiery animals" is a very literal translation. Fire is associated with angry emotion and violent behavior. Also, bestial behavior or animal-like behavior was historically associated with angry emotion and violent behavior. A more useful translation might be "violent men or women"

The natural positioning of a the legs of a horse, the legs of an oxe, or the legs of a cow would preclude livestock from being restrained with a Tripalium.

Men and women exhibiting symptoms of a violent episode as part of mental illness were restrained on a Tripalium. 50.205.174.220 (talk) 22:00, 16 March 2024 (UTC)[reply]