Garrote

A garrote or garrote vil (a Spanish word; alternative spellings include garotte and garrotte including "garrot" and " G-knot") is a weapon, most often referring to a handheld ligature of chain, rope, scarf, wire or fishing line used to strangle a person.

A garrote can be made out of many different materials, including ropes, cable ties, fishing lines, nylon, guitar strings, telephone cord or piano wire.

A stick may be used to tighten the garrote; the Spanish word actually refers to the stick itself, so it is a pars pro toto where the eponymous component may actually be absent. In Spanish, the term may also refer to a rope and stick used to constrict a limb as a torture device.

Since World War II, the garrote has been regularly employed as a weapon by soldiers as a silent means of eliminating sentries and other enemy personnel. Instruction in the use of purpose-built and improvised garrottes is included in the training of many elite military units and special forces. A typical military garrote consists of two wooden handles attached to a length of flexible wire; the wire is looped over a sentry's head and pulled taut in one motion. Soldiers of the French Foreign Legion have used a particular type of double-loop garrote (referred to as la loupe), where a double coil of rope or cord is dropped around a victim's neck and then pulled taut. Even if the victim pulls on one of the coils, he only succeeds in tightening the other.

The garrote was widely employed in 17th- and 18th-century India as an assassination device, particularly by the Thuggee cult. Practitioners used a yellow silk or cloth scarf called a rumāl. The Indian version of the garrote frequently incorporates a knot at the center intended to aid in crushing the larynx while someone applies pressure to the victim's back, usually with a foot or knee.

The garrote was the principal device used for capital punishment in Spain for one and a half centuries until its abolition. Originally, it entailed a mode of execution wherein a convict would be beaten to death with a club (garrote in Spanish). This later developed into a practice of strangulation by which the condemned was tied to a wooden stake with a looped section of rope placed around his neck. A wooden stick would then be placed in the loop and twisted by an executioner, causing the rope to tighten until it strangled the prisoner. As time went on, the execution method was modified in the form of a wooden chair to which the condemned was bound, while the executioner tightened a metal band around his or her neck with a crank or a wheel until asphyxiation of the condemned person was accomplished.

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Wikipedia