Hangman's knot
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The hangman's knot or hangman's noose (also known as a collar during Elizabethan times) is a well-known knot most often associated with its use in hanging. The knot is non-jamming.
For safety reasons, this knot should never be placed around a person's neck. (This warning applies to many types of knot)
Canonical Name: Hangman's knot.
Variant Name(s): Hangman's noose, Jack Ketch's knot
Category: noose
Origin: Ancient.
Related knots: Noose, running bowline, tarbuck knot.
Releasing: Non-jamming, just pull on the standing end.
Efficiency: Unknown.
Caveat: None.
Uses: Hanging
Tying: To tie the hangman's knot, begin with a bight, leaving a long stretch of rope at the working end. This is the noose. On the working end, form another bight by folding the rope back (the length you wish your noose to be) to where the original and larger bight starts. You should have three parallel lines. Then start looping the working end around the three ropes several times, beginning at the first bight, and ending near the bend created earlier. To finish the knot, thread the working end through the second bight formed at the top of your loops and tighten.
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History
Use
While its most notorious use is to cause the death of humans by hanging, the hangman's knot may be used in any situation where a loop that slides to the size of the attached object is desired.
If the loop is pulled completely closed, the knot becomes a weight on the end of the rope which may be used for throwing ropes. It is common to use such a knot, rather than an artificial weight, when people will be standing to receive the thrown rope.
Number of coils
Each additional coil adds friction to the knot, which makes the noose harder to pull closed or open. The number of coils should therefore be adjusted depending on the intended use, the type and thickness of rope, and environmental conditions such as wet or greasy rope. Six to eight loops are normal when using natural ropes; more may be used on nylon ropes. One coil makes it equivalent to the simple slip knot.
According to tradition, the noose used in executions had 13 coils. However, in practice that produces a very elongated knot which may be unstable as the knot itself starts to bend, so it seems unlikely that this was ever the case outside fiction.
Use in language
The phrase "tightening the noose" refers to knots of this sort; it is used metaphorically to describe encircling military manoeuvres, by law enforcement to describe either a physical attempt at surrounding a criminal or the ongoing success of an investigation generally, etc.