gallows

Several officers told investigators that they used gallows humor as a way to deal with the stress of working long hours in a small, windowless basement office.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 4, 2026

A dozen minutes from the end, there was more singing from the Scottish crowd that we can only describe as gallows humour.

From BBC ● Jun. 14, 2026

Many China hawks in the administration have taken to gallows humor, calling the shift the ‘Busan Freeze,’ named for the South Korea meeting between the leaders that produced a fragile trade detente.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 10, 2026

Ralph Waldo Emerson declared that Brown would “make the gallows as glorious as the cross.”

From Slate ● Apr. 2, 2026

Such factions here we had as commonly attend such voyages, that a pair of gallows was made, but Captain Smith, for whom they were intended, could not be persuaded to use them.

From "Blood on the River" by Elisa Carbone

I mean, merely, that gallowses are fast disappearing, and that the people--le peuple you will understand--begin to accept money.

From Home as Found by James Fenimore Cooper

Tildy and Johnny were married, and Johnny's gallowses never creaked any more.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 30, September, 1873 by Various

When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are raised in the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders.

From Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series by Horatio Robert Forbes Brown

The cross-pieces on the small bitts at the main and fore hatchways in flush-decked vessels, for stowing away the booms and spars over the boats; also termed gallowses, gallows-tops, gallows-bitts, and gallows-stanchions.

From The Sailor's Word-Book An Alphabetical Digest of Nautical Terms, including Some More Especially Military and Scientific, but Useful to Seamen; as well as Archaisms of Early Voyagers, etc. by Sir Edward Belcher

The comical little fellow wore an unbleached cotton shirt, and tattered pantaloons, with home-made suspenders or "gallowses."

From Queer Stories for Boys and Girls by Edward Eggleston