The gallows is the frame on which people were hanged. Sent to the gallows, build a gallows, gallows humour.
The word looks plural and takes a singular verb. Gallows humour is joking about your own dire situation, and it is a recognised way of coping rather than a failure of seriousness. Britain last used one in 1964 and abolished the death penalty soon after.
1noungallowsThe frame on which people were hanged.
“The prisoner was led to the gallows at dawn.”
gallows is a structure.
Old English galga names the structure, from a Germanic root meaning a pole or forked branch.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵʰalgʰ-
Proto-Germanic
*galgô
Proto-West Germanic
*galgō
Old English
galga
Middle English
galwes
English, today
gallows
Built from
From Middle English galwes, galewes, plural of galwe, galowe, from Old English galga, gealga, from Proto-West Germanic galgō, from Proto-Germanic galgô, from Proto-Indo-European ǵʰalgʰ-, ǵʰalg- (“long switch, rod, shaft, pole, perch”). The plural construction probably refers to the vertical and horizontal beams. Compare West Frisian galge, Dutch galg, German Galgen, Danish galge, Icelandic gálgi. For the pronunciation, compare bellows, bodice.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Song of Ice and Fire