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To torture; to cause to have great pain or suffering; to torment. [R.] Shak.

ratively: To compensate justly; to requite according to merit; to reward; to punish; to retort or retaliate upon. For which, or pay me quickly, or I'll pay you. B. Jonson.

A retort or still having a curved tube or tubes leading back from the head to the body for continuous condensation and redistillation.

To torture by compelling to stand with one foot on a pointed stake. [Obs.]

To inflict pain upon; to torment; to torture; to afflict. [Obs.] Chaucer. Shak. That people that pyned him to death. Piers Plowman. One is pined in prison, another tortured on the rack. Bp. Hall.

An instrument of torture, consisting of a board with holes into which the fingers were pressed, and fastened with pegs. [Written also pilliewinkles.] [Scot.] Sir W. Scott.

The ventral shield or shell of tortoises and turtles. See Testudinata.

An instrument of punishment or torture resembling the knout, used in Russia.

An extortioner. See Poller. [Obs.] Bacon.

To extort from; to plunder; to strip. [Obs.] Which polls and pills the poor in piteous wise. Spenser.

A head or poll tax; hence, extortion. [Obs.] Foxe.

One who polls or cuts hair; a barber. [R.] (c) One who extorts or plunders. [Obs.] Bacon. (d) One who registers voters, or one who enters his name as a voter.

Plunder, or extortion. [Obs.] E. Hall.

Distorted. Pot foot, a distorted foot. Sir T. Herbert.

Having a distorted foot, or a clubfoot or clubfeet. B. Jonson.

A genus of plants embracing a large number of species, including bistort, knotweed, smartweed, etc.

The whole plant is spicy. It grows in ponds and swamps from Virginia to Florida. -- Pond tortoise, Pond turtle (Zoöl.), any freshwater tortoise of the family Emydidæ. Numerous species are found in North America.

To assume a particular posture or attitude; to contort the body into artificial attitudes, as an acrobat or contortionist; also, to pose.

A river tortoise; one of a group of tortoises (Potamites, or Trionychoidea) having a soft shell, webbed feet, and a sharp beak. See Trionyx.

Of or pertaining to Procrustes, or the mode of torture practiced by him; producing conformity by violent means; as, the Procrustean treatment; a Procrustean limit. See Procrustes.