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harrow. -- Drill harrow. See under 6th Drill. -- Under the harrow, subjected to actual torture with a toothed instrument, or to great affliction or oppression.

ed; visionary; ideal. Wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer Imaginary ills and fancied tortures Addison. Imaginary calculus See under Calculus. -- Imaginary expression or quantity (Alg.), an algebraic expression which involves the impossible operation of taking the square root of a negative quantity; as, sq. root-9…

c. A man . . . very wise and ingenious in feats of war. Hakluyt. Thou, king, send out For torturers ingenious. Shak. The more ingenious men are, the more apt are they to trouble themselves. Sir W. Temple.

rend; to separate by tearing; to mangle; as, to lacerate the flesh. Hence: To afflict; to torture; as, to lacerate the heart.

To persecute; to torment; to torture. Chaucer. The lovely Amoret, whose gentle heart Thou martyrest with sorrow and with smart. Spenser. Racked with sciatics, martyred with the stone. Pope.

Affliction; torment; torture. Chaucer.

Act of martyrizing, or state of being martyrized; torture. B. Jonson.

Any uneasy sensation in animal bodies, from slight uneasiness to extreme distress or torture, proceeding from a derangement of functions, disease, or injury by violence; bodily distress; bodily suffering; an ache; a smart. "The pain of Jesus Christ." Chaucer.

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

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.

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

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.

nvestigation; specifically, a judicial or official investigation; also, examination under torture. Blackstone. He that was in question for the robbery. Shak. The Scottish privy council had power to put state prisoners to the question. Macaulay.

An engine of torture, consisting of a large frame, upon which the body was gradually stretched until, sometimes, the joints were dislocated; -- formerly used judicially for extorting confessions from criminals or suspected persons. During the troubles of the fifteenth century, a rack was introduced into the Tower, and…

rab. -- Scavenger's daughter Etym: [corrupt. of Skevington's daughter], an instrument of torture invented by Sir W. Skevington, which so compressed the body as to force the blood to flow from nostrils. and sometimes from the hands and feet. Am. Cyc.

together, or make strong with, or as with, sinews. Shak. Wretches, now stuck up for long tortures . . . might, if properly treated, serve to sinew the state in time of danger. Goldsmith.

on of certain judges. It could proceed on mere rumor or examine witnesses; it could apply torture. It was abolished by the Long Parliament in 1641. Encyc. Brit.

To punish or torture by the strappado. Milton.