Plural of gibbal; shackles or fetters used to restrain prisoners, particularly leg irons.
Possibly from Hebrew 'gēbhel' or a related Semitic language, or alternatively from Old French. The term appears in medieval English legal and prison documents.
Prison vocabulary is one of the oldest specialized vocabularies in English because prisons are ancient institutions. Words like 'gibbals' come from a time when jails were just dirty places to hold people until they were executed!
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