(An instrument of punishment, consisting of two beams, the upper one being movable, with two small openings between them, large enough for the ankles of the prisoner.--ED.) The term "stocks" is applied in the Authorized Version to two different articles one of which answers rather to our pillory, inasmuch as the body was placed in a bent position, by the confinement of the neck and arms as well as the legs while the other answers to our "stocks," the feet alone being confined in it. The prophet Jeremiah was confined in the first sort, (Jeremiah 20:2) which appears to have been a common mode of punishment in his day, (Jeremiah 29:26) as the prisons contained a chamber for the special purpose, termed "the house of the pillory." (2 Chronicles 16:10) (Authorized Version "prison-house"). The stocks, properly so called, are noticed in (Job 13:27; 33:11; Acts 16:24) The term used in (Proverbs 7:22) (Authorized Version "stocks") more properly means a fetter.
Stocks
Paul and Silas sit in an inner prison with their feet “fast in the stocks” (Acts 16:24), a device for holding a prisoner’s legs. The Bible mentions it at other low moments. Job feels watched and held down: “Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks” (Job 13:27). Jeremiah is struck by Pashur and put in the stocks at the high gate of Benjamin (Jeremiah 20:2), for speaking what God told him. In each case a person is held in place and shamed. For how the Acts scene ends, read Acts 16:22-34.
4 verses
Job
Jeremiah
Then Pashur smote Jeremiah the prophet, and put him in the stocks that were in the high gate of Benjamin, which was by the house of the LORD.
Acts
Who, having received such a charge, thrust them into the inner prison, and made their feet fast in the stocks.
From Smith's Bible Dictionary
William Smith, 1884