Word.ws English Dictionary

draw and quarter

draw and quarter verb: to execute (someone) by castration, disembowelling, beheading and quartering.

Verb

draw and quarter (third-person singular simple present draws and quarters, present participle drawing and quartering, simple past drew and quartered, past participle drawn and quartered)

  1. (historical, transitive) To execute (someone) by castration, disembowelling, beheading and quartering.
  2. (figuratively, transitive) To severely punish or criticize someone.

Forms of draw and quarter

third-person singular presentdraws and quarters
present participledrawing and quartering
pastdrew and quartered
past participledrawn and quartered

Words formed from draw and quarter

Questions about draw and quarter

What does draw and quarter mean?
Draw and quarter means to execute (someone) by castration, disembowelling, beheading and quartering.
What part of speech is draw and quarter?
Draw and quarter is a verb.
What is the past tense of draw and quarter?
The past tense of draw and quarter is drew and quartered.

Words near draw and quarter in the dictionary

  1. draw a straight furrow
  2. draw a veil over
  3. draw a wet sponge across the slate
  4. draw a wet sponge over the slate
  5. draw ahead
  6. draw and quarter
  7. draw attention
  8. draw away
  9. draw back
  10. draw blank
  11. draw blood

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: draw and quarter (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-draw and quarter.wav.

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