Why this word is great
STRAPPADO — [Noun] A form of torture in which the victim is suspended by a rope tied to the hands, which are bound behind the back, and then dropped abruptly. From Italian strappato, past participle of strappare ("to pull, snatch"), from strap- ("violent pull") + -are (verb-forming suffix). Unlike the "rack" (which stretches the body with mechanical precision) or the "pillory" (which immobilizes for public spectacle), the strappado is a brutal economy of motion: the sudden jerk of the rope, the shoulders wrenched from their sockets, the body left dangling like a broken marionette. It is the sound of tendons giving way, the taste of blood from a bitten tongue, and the awful clarity that pain, at its purest, requires no elaborate machinery—just gravity, and a human hand to let go.