KYPHONISMS, or Cyphonismus, an ancient punishment which was frequently undergone by the martyrs in the primitive times; wherein the body of the person to suffer was anointed with honey, and so exposed to the sun, that the flies and wasps might be tempted to torment him. This was performed in three manners: sometimes they only tied the patient to a stake; sometimes they hoisted him up into the air, and suspended him in a basket; and sometimes they stretched him out on the ground with his hands tied behind him. The word is originally Greek, and comes from κυφος, which signifies either the stake to which the patient was tied, the collar fitted to his neck, or an instrument wherewith they tormented him: the scholiast on Aristophanes says, it was a wooden lock or cage; and that it was called so from κυφος, "to crook or bend," because it kept the tortured in a crooked, bowing posture; others take the κυφος for a log of wood laid over the criminal's head, to prevent his standing upright: Hesychius describes the κυφος as a piece of wood whereon criminals were stretched and tormented. In effect, it is probable the word might signify all these several things. It was a general name, whereof these were the species.

Suidas gives us the fragment of an old law, which punished those who treated the laws with contempt with kyphonism for the space of twenty days; after which they were to be precipitated from a rock, dressed in women's habit. L, A semi-vowel, or liquid, making the eleventh letter of the alphabet.

It was derived from the old Hebrew Lamed, or Greek Lambda Λ. It is founded by intercepting the breath between the top of the tongue and forefront of the palate, with the mouth open; and makes a sweet sound, with something of an aspiration; and therefore the Britons and Spaniards usually doubled it, or added an h to it, in the beginning of words, as in llan, or llan, "a temple," sounding nearly like fl, &c. In English words of one syllable it is doubled at the end, as tell, bell, knell, &c. but in words of more syllables than one it is single at the end, as evil, general, constitutional, &c. It is placed after most of the consonants in the beginning of words and syllables, as black, glare, ad-les, ea-gle, &c., but before none. Its sound is clear in Abel, but obscure in able, &c.

As a numeral letter, L denotes 50; and with a dash over it, thus, L, 5000. Used as an abbreviation, L stands for Lucius; and L, L, S. for a secterice. See Secterice.