Stonehenge
English words "stn" meaning "stone", and either "hencg"
meaning "hinge" (because the stone lintels hinge on the upright
stones) or "hen(c)en" meaning "hang" or "gallows" or
"instrument of torture". Medieval gallows consisted of two
uprights with a lintel joining them, resembling Stonehenge's
trilithons, rather than looking like the inverted L-shape more
familiar today.
The "henge" portion has given its name to a class of
monuments known as henges. Archaeologists define henges as
earthworks consisting of a circular banked enclosure with an
internal ditch. As often happens in archaeological terminology,
this is a holdover from antiquarian usage, and Stonehenge is not
truly a henge site as its bank is inside its ditch. Despite being
contemporary with true Neolithic henges and stone circles,
Stonehenge is in many ways atypical. For example, its extant
trilithons make it unique. Stonehenge is only distantly related to