tsuwm posted an interesting word today in his daily vocab mailing, but equally interesting were the companion words. Here's a quote he quoted:

"Foursquare... for the garrote, the gallows, and the
guillotine. Auto-da-fé. Decollation. Defenestration.
Drawn and quartered. Disemboweled. Noyade.
Bastinado. Lapidation. Impalement. Firing squad.
Buried alive. Burned at the stake. Or maybe that's
auto-da-fé, I'm not all that up-to-date on the
Inquisition."
- John Gregory Dunne, Nothing Lost

Noyade? I thought of the Salem witches along with their suffering of 'burning at the stake.' Lapidation? I thought of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."

When you look at the singular list, I wonder what literary and historical associations might pop into your heads.

I hope I have stated the above in as direct and objective manner as possible so that I would not offend anyone. But the list is both fascinating and, naturally, disturbing, and I thought it would be interesting to know your own associations with these barbaric practices.