English · Idiom Historical

hempen fever

Preserved but no longer current.

Both English Tiếng Việt

Meaning · English

Death on the gallows, the rope being made of hemp.

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

Chết trên gallows, với dây được làm từ cây gai dầu

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Era: ca. 1898 (Victorian)

Sources & notes

Reproduced from Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (1898 edition, public domain; archive.org, retrieved 2026-07-31; OCR text, minor errors possible). Reflects the scholarship and attitudes of its era.

Topics: Historical slang (1800s)

Common questions

What does “hempen fever” mean?

Death on the gallows, the rope being made of hemp.

Is “hempen fever” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.

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