Definition
A method of execution by strangulation or spinal severance, historically associated with Spain and Portugal, in which a condemned person is secured to an upright post by an iron collar and put to death either by tightening the collar to compress the throat or by a mechanical blade that severs the spinal cord at the base of the skull. In legal contexts, the term refers both to the apparatus itself and to the act of execution performed by it.
As a verb, garrote also describes the act of strangling or rendering a person insensible by compression of the throat — a method associated in criminal law with robbery by strangulation, in which the victim is incapacitated from behind while an accomplice robs them.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): To execute by strangulation using a garrote; also, to suddenly render insensible by semi-strangulation in order to rob.
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): A Spanish mode of execution by strangulation, with an iron collar affixed to a post and tightened by a screw until life becomes extinct; also, the instrument by means of which the punishment is inflicted.
Editorial note: The common meaning and the legal meaning largely overlap, but legal sources introduce a meaningful distinction. In criminal law, garroting as robbery — using strangulation to subdue a victim for theft — is a distinct offense category, separate from its use as a state-sanctioned execution method. A researcher encountering "garrote" or "garroting" in 19th-century criminal records must determine which sense is operative: capital punishment or street crime.
Recognized Forms
/SUBTYPES
The term appears in legal sources in two functionally distinct applications:
1. GARROTE AS EXECUTION METHOD — The formal, state-administered method of capital punishment employed historically in Spain, Portugal, and Spanish colonial territories. The condemned is secured to a post; death is produced either by strangulation through collar compression or, in a later refinement, by mechanical severance of the spinal cord. This form appears in comparative discussions of capital punishment methods.
2. GARROTING AS CRIMINAL ACT — A street crime method, prominent in 19th-century English and American criminal law, in which a victim is seized from behind and the throat compressed to render them insensible while confederates rob them. This usage gave rise to the term "garroting panic" in Victorian England and influenced legislation on robbery with violence.
Why It Matters in Research
Researchers will encounter GARROTE in two largely separate bodies of legal material, and conflating them produces misreadings.
In capital punishment research, garrote appears in comparative and reform literature examining European methods of execution alongside hanging, beheading, and later electrocution. Because the method was primarily associated with Catholic monarchies and their colonial systems, it appears most frequently in Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American legal sources rather than in common law materials. Researchers working in Anglo-American sources will find it cited mainly as a foreign comparator or curiosity.
In criminal law research, garroting-as-robbery is the more practically significant usage for common law jurisdictions. Mid-to-late 19th-century English criminal records and newspaper accounts document a moral panic over garroting attacks in London, which contributed directly to debates about corporal punishment and the passage of the Garrotters Act 1863 — legislation that restored flogging as a punishment for robbery with violence. Researchers tracing the history of violent crime, sentencing policy, or corporal punishment in Victorian England will need this connection.
The two usages rarely appear in the same source, and Bouvier's entry focuses exclusively on the execution method without addressing the criminal act application. Researchers relying solely on Bouvier for this term will miss the criminal law dimension entirely.
Historical Dictionary Support
Bouvier's Law Dictionary provides a technically precise description of the execution apparatus, drawn from the Century Dictionary and Encyclopedia Dictionary. Bouvier distinguishes between the earlier strangulation method and the later refinement using a spinal blade — a distinction that matters in comparative humane-execution debates of the 19th century, where the spinal severance version was sometimes defended as more instantaneous and therefore more humane than simple throttling.
Webster's 1913 describes only the strangulation mechanism without acknowledging the spinal blade variant, suggesting that by 1913 the older image of the device had greater popular currency.
Neither Bouvier nor Webster's addresses garroting as a robbery technique, which is a significant gap for researchers working in criminal law. The criminal sense of the term had substantial legal consequence in English law during precisely the period when both dictionaries were compiled.
Jurisdictional Note
The garrote as a formal method of capital punishment was associated with Spain, Portugal, and their colonial territories; it had no formal legal existence in common law jurisdictions. The criminal act of garroting, however, was prosecuted across English and American courts under robbery and assault statutes, with the method treated as an aggravating circumstance bearing on sentencing rather than a separate offense in most American jurisdictions.