crucifixion

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act of crucifying; execution on a cross.
• noun The crucifying of Jesus on Calvary. Used with the.
• noun A representation of Jesus on the cross.
• noun An extremely difficult, painful trial; torturous suffering.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun The act of fixing to a cross, or the state of being stretched on a cross: an ancient Oriental mode of inflicting the death-penalty, applied in rare instances by the Greeks and more commonly by the Romans, by both Greeks and Romans considered an infamous form of death, and reserved in general for slaves and highway robbers.
• noun Specifically The putting to death of Christ upon the cross on the hill of Calvary.
• noun Hence Intense suffering or affliction; great mental trial.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun The act of nailing or fastening a person to a cross, for the purpose of putting him to death; the use of the cross as a method of capital punishment.
• noun The state of one who is nailed or fastened to a cross; death upon a cross.
• noun Intense suffering or affliction; painful trial.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun An execution by being nailed or tied to an upright cross and left to hang there until dead.
• noun The death on the Cross of Christ.
• noun figuratively An ordeal, terrible, especially malicious treatment imposed upon someone

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun the act of executing by a method widespread in the ancient world; the victim's hands and feet are bound or nailed to a cross
• noun the infliction of extremely painful punishment or suffering
• noun the death of Jesus by crucifixion