Catherine wheel
Noun
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Noun
Catherine wheel (plural Catherine wheels)
- A breaking wheel.
- 1992, David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 3rd ed., page 88
- […] her tortures consisted of being broken on a wheel (later called Catherine wheel), but the machine broke down injuring bystanders; Catherine was beheaded.
- 1992, David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 3rd ed., page 88
- (chiefly heraldry) The image of a breaking wheel, or wheel with spikes on it.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: […], 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Printed by John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, OCLC 54573970 ↗:, II.i.1:
- Sorcerers are too common; cunning men, wizards, and white witches […] have commonly St. Catherine's wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some other part about them […]
- A firework that rotates when lit.
- (gymnastics) A cartwheel move.
- 1897, W. Somerset Maugham, Liza of Lambeth, chapter 1
- […] she went on, making turns and twists, flourishing her skirts, kicking higher and higher, and finally, among a volley of shouts, fell on her hands and turned head over heels in a magnificent catherine-wheel; then scrambling to her feet again, she tumbled into the arms of a young man standing in the front of the ring.
- 1897, W. Somerset Maugham, Liza of Lambeth, chapter 1
- (architecture) A rose window.
This text is extracted from the Wiktionary and it is available under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license | Terms and conditions | Privacy policy 0.004