ordeal : Idioms & Phrases

Index

Fire ordeal

  • an ancient mode of trial, in which the test was the ability of the accused to handle or tread upon red-hot irons. Abbot.
Webster 1913

Ordeal bean

  • noun dark brown highly poisonous seed of the calabar-bean vine; source of physostigmine and used in native witchcraft
    calabar bean.
WordNet
  • . (Bot.) See Calabar bean, under Calabar.
Webster 1913

Ordeal root

  • (Bot.) the root of a species of Strychnos growing in West Africa, used, like the ordeal bean, in trials for witchcraft.
Webster 1913

Ordeal tree

  • noun evergreen shrub or tree of South Africa
    Acocanthera venenata; Acocanthera oppositifolia; bushman's poison.
WordNet
  • (Bot.), a poisonous tree of Madagascar (Tanghinia, ∨ Cerbera, venenata). Persons suspected of crime are forced to eat the seeds of the plumlike fruit, and criminals are put to death by being pricked with a lance dipped in the juice of the seeds.
Webster 1913

trial by ordeal

  • noun a primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence
    ordeal.
WordNet

water ordeal

Wa"ter or"de*al
Definitions
  1. Same as Ordeal by water. See the Note under Ordeal, n., 1.
Webster 1913