E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Cucking-stool (The)
or Choking-stool, for ducking scolds, is not connected with choke (to stifle), but the French choquer; hence the archiac verb cuck (to throw), and one still in use, chuck
(chuck-farthing). The cucking-stool is the stool which is chucked or thrown into the water.
1
“Now, if one cucking-stool was for each scold,
Some towns, I fear, would not their numbers hold.”
