E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Noyades (2 syl.).
A means of execution adopted by Carrier at Nantes, in the first French Revolution, and called Carrier’s Vertical Deportation. Some 150 persons being stowed in the hold of a vessel in the Loire, the vessel was scuttled, and the victims drowned. Nero, at the suggestion of Anice’tus, drowned his mother in this same manner. (French, noyer, to drown.)
