This is a list of methods of capital punishment, also known as execution.
These well-known and notable methods of capital punishment are currently legal in at least one country.
Many historically recorded methods of execution include torture, often intending to make a spectacle of pain and suffering with overtones of sadism, cruelty, intimidation, and dehumanisation, at times aimed at attempting to deter the commission of offences. Some of these methods may still be in practice by terrorist groups.