Editing Gallows (section)

{{Short description|Structure for execution by hanging}}
{{About|the execution device|other uses|Gallows (disambiguation)}}
{{Redirect|Gallows tree|the folk song|The Gallows Tree}}
{{more citations needed|date=May 2016}}
[[File:Gallows in Texas, 1916.jpg|thumb|Unidentified men wait at the gallows before execution of [[List of people executed in Texas, 1910–1919|Melquiades Chapa and Jose Buenrostro]] on May 19, 1916, in [[Brownsville, Texas]].]]
[[File:Japanese_war_criminal_on_gallows_of_Changi_Gaol_1946.jpeg|thumb|right|A hangman positions the noose around the neck of a [[Japanese war crimes|Japanese war criminal]] as he is held steady by a British military officer just prior to his execution by hanging at the gallows in [[Changi Prison]] in [[Singapore]] 1946. The condemned man is standing within a circle on the trapdoor, and on either side of him are two other circles indicating that the gallows had the provision for multiple simultaneous executions.]]
[[File:Hanging from The Miseries and Misfortunes of War by Jacques Callot.jpg|thumb|Illustration of hanging during the [[Thirty Years' War]]]]
[[File:Tombstone courthouse gallows.jpg|thumb|These gallows in [[Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park]] are maintained for historical purposes by [[Arizona State Parks]].]]
[[File:Photo poultry hall.jpg|thumb|upright|''New Drop'' gallows in [[Rutland County Museum]]]]
[[File:Execution Lincoln assassins.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Execution of [[Mary Surratt]], [[Lewis Powell (assassin)|Lewis Powell]], [[David Herold]], and [[George Atzerodt]] on July 7, 1865, after [[trapdoor]] has been sprung, at [[Fort Lesley J. McNair|Fort McNair]], in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington]]]]

A '''gallows''' (or less precisely '''scaffold''') is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks of grain or minerals, usually positioned in markets or toll gates. The term was also used for a projecting framework from which a ship's anchor might be raised so it is no longer sitting on the seabed, riverbed or dock; "weighing [the] anchor" meant raising it using this apparatus while avoiding striking the ship's hull.

In modern usage the term has come to mean almost exclusively a scaffold or gibbet used for [[execution (legal)|execution]] by [[hanging]].