Catherine wheel
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English
Alternative forms
Etymology
Saint Catherine of Alexandria was said to have been sentenced to execution on such a wheel, which shattered at her touch.
Noun
Catherine wheel (plural Catherine wheels)
- (historical or heraldry) A breaking wheel, or wheel with spikes on it.
- 1624, Democritus Junior [pseudonym; Robert Burton], The Anatomy of Melancholy: , 2nd edition, Oxford, Oxfordshire: John Lichfield and James Short, for Henry Cripps, →OCLC:, 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
- 1992, David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 3rd edition, 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.
- 2008, Peter Carey, His Illegal Self, page 181:
- She only lied to the boy to keep him from hurt, and for her sin her intestines were pulled from her on a Catherine wheel.
- A firework that rotates when lit.
- (gymnastics) A cartwheel move.
- 1897, W. Somerset Maugham, chapter 1, in Liza of Lambeth:
- […] 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.
- 1912, Arthur Conan Doyle, The Lost World , London; New York, N.Y.: Hodder and Stoughton, →OCLC:
- We did a Catharine-wheel together down the passage. Somehow we gathered up a chair upon our way, and bounded on with it towards the street.
- (architecture) A rose window.