give someone the chair

English

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Verb

give someone the chair (third-person singular simple present gives someone the chair, present participle giving someone the chair, simple past gave someone the chair, past participle given someone the chair)

1. (chiefly US, idiomatic) To sentence a person to execution by means of the electric chair.
   • 1997 July 7, Sidney Zion, “High Court Takes Low Road to Justice”, in New York Daily News, retrieved 3 Mar. 2009:

     Joseph O'Dell, convicted of a brutal rape and murder, was sentenced to death after a Virginia prosecutor told the jury that if they didn't give him the chair, he'd one day get out and be free to kill again.