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Definition of "tumbrel" [tum•brel]

  • A two-wheeled cart, especially a farmer's cart that can be tilted to dump a load. (noun)
  • A crude cart used to carry condemned prisoners to their place of execution, as during the French Revolution. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Use "tumbrel" in a sentence
  • "a two-wheeled tumbrel: According to the OED, a tumbrel is a cart constructed so that the body tilts backwards to empty out the load, such as a dung-cart."
  • "I think a tumbrel remark is either one you make in a tumbrel on your way to the guillotine cause a tumbrel is the wagon that carried French aristocrats to the chopping block or it's the type of remark that could lead to people wanting to put you in a tumbrel, as in "let them eat cake.""
  • "He was removed from the magistracy after having, in 1800, jumped into the tumbrel taking Sarah Lloyd, a servant girl, to the scaffold, and harangued the crowd about the injustice of the sentence."