firing squadnoun [ C ]
uk/ˈfaɪə.rɪŋ ˌskwɒd/us/ˈfaɪ.rɪŋ ˌskwɑːd/a group of soldiers who are ordered to shoot and kill a prisoner
Thesaurus: synonyms and related words
Death penalties
- behead
- burn
- capital punishment
- chair
- condemn
- condemn sb to (do) sth
- condemned
- decapitate
- execute
- execution
- executioner
- gallows
- hanging
- hangman
- hung, drawn, and quartered idiom
- noose
- scaffold
- stake
- stone
- string
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Parts of armies & groups of servicemen
Examples from literature
- Barney wondered just what kind of a sensation it was to stand facing a firing squad.
- I'd rather die before a firing squad after an attempt to save my wretched country than live to see it set back a hundred years.
- It halted and the man took his place before the firing squad but a few feet away.
- Suppose they took her for a spy, and that tomorrow's sun found her facing a firing squad?
- The young officer who commanded them was more nervous than the prisoner—it was his first detail with a firing squad.