lingchi

Etymology

Borrowed from Mandarin 凌遲 (língchí).

noun

  1. A form of execution used in China from roughly 900 to 1905 C.E., the "death by a thousand cuts", in which the condemned was killed by methodical removal of body parts with a knife.“The face of the dying man in the lingchi video monotonously evokes Maria Falconetti in Carl Theodor Dreyer ’s 1928 “Passion of Joan of Arc.””