an engine invented for punishing scolds and unquiet women, by ducking them in water; called in ancient times a tumbrel, and sometimes a trebuchet. In Domesday, it is called cathedra stercoris; and it was in use even in the Saxon times, by whom it was described to be cathedra in qua rixose mulieres sedentes aquis demergebantur. It was anciently also a punishment inflicted upon brewers and bakers transgressing the laws; who were thereupon in such a stool immersed over head and ears in stercor, some stinking water. Some think it a corruption from ducking-stool; others from choking-stool, quia hoc modo demersae aquis fere suffocantur. See CASTIGATORY.