lethal chamber

lethal chamber (plural lethal chambers)

1. A gas chamber, especially one used for euthanizing animals.
   • 1909, Rudyard Kipling, "The Power of the Dog":

     When the fourteen years which Nature permits, Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits, And the vet's unspoken prescription runs, To lethal chambers or loaded guns

lethal chamber (third-person singular simple present lethal chambers, present participle lethal chambering, simple past and past participle lethal chambered)

1. (transitive) To execute (someone) by means of lethal chamber.
   • 1913, Oliver Onions, The Story of Louie:

     "They ought to be lethal-chambered, nasty little sewer-rats, one of 'em's saved them the trouble at any rate."

   • 1924, Ford Madox Ford, Some Do Not… (Parade's End), Penguin, published 2012, page 39:

     ‘And at once he'll be on his high-horse – he knows everything! – and he'll prove, prove, that all unhealthy children must be lethal-chambered or the world will go to pieces.’