The present participle of 'bowstring': the action of executing someone by strangulation with a bowstring, or literally stringing a bow.
From 'bow' and 'string'. The violent execution method was historically used in Ottoman and some Asian contexts where bowstrings were repurposed as execution devices.
Some of history's grimmest tools came from everyday objects—'bowstringing' as an execution method meant a warrior's own weapon string could become an instrument of death, which added dark irony to the name.
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