plunging in water, a diversion anciently practised among the Goths by way of exercise; but among the Celtæ, Franks, and ancient Germans, it was a sort of punishment for persons of scandalous lives. — At Marfelles and Bourbon their men and women of scandalous life are condemned to the stake, as they call it; that is, to be shut up naked to the shift in an iron cage fastened to the yard of a shallop, and ducked several times in the river. The same is done at Thoulouse to blasphemers.

a sort of marine punishment, inflicted by the French, on those who have been convicted of defection, blasphemy, or exciting sedition. It is performed as follows: The criminal is placed astride of a short thick batten, fastened to the end of a rope, which passes through a block hanging at one of the yards-arms. Thus fixed, he is hoisted suddenly up to the yard, and the rope being slackened at once, he is plunged into the sea. This chastisement is repeated several times conformable to the purport of the sentence pronounced against the culprit, who has at that time several cannon-balls fastened to his feet during the punishment; which Ducking which is rendered public by the firing of a gun, to advertize the other ships of the fleet thereof, that their crews may become spectators.

Ducking is also a penalty which veteran sailors pretend to inflict on those who, for the first time, pass the tropic of Cancer, the equator, or the straits of Gibraltar, in consequence of their refusal or incapacity to pay the usual fine levied on this occasion.

Ducking-Stool. See Castigator.