Pressing (also known in England by its French name, peine forte et dure) was a form of torture and capital punishment carried out by laying a prisoner on the ground and placing a board on top of them. Rocks or other weights were then placed on top of the board until his or her body was crushed. It was abolished as a judicial punishment in England in 1772.
Pressing as a mode of torture was carried out in Arthur Miller's The Crucible when an elderly man, Giles Corey, refused to answer to charges of witchcraft: "All he would say was, more weight".
