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Any severe trial, or test; a painful experience. Ordeal bean. (Bot.) See Calabar bean, under Calabar. -- Ordeal root (Bot.) the root of a species of Strychnos growing in West Africa, used, like the ordeal bean, in trials for witchcraft. -- Ordeal tree (Bot.), a poisonous tree of Madagascar (Tanghinia, or Cerbera, ven…

Same as Ordeal by water. See the Note under Ordeal, n., 1.

the pupil of the eye; also in tetanus, neuralgia, and rheumatic diseases; -- called also ordeal bean, being used by the negroes in trials for witchcraft.

The morsel of execration; a species of ordeal consisting in the eating of a piece of bread consecrated by imprecation. If the suspected person ate it freely, he was pronounced innocent; but if it stuck in his throat, it was considered as a proof of his guilt. Burril.

ance against fire. -- Fire opal, a variety of opal giving firelike reflections. -- 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. -- Fire pan, a pan for holding or conveying fire, especially the receptacle for the priming of a gun…

ed. To run the gantlet, to suffer the punishment of the gantlet; hence, to go through the ordeal of severe criticism or controversy, or ill-treatment at many hands. Winthrop ran the gantlet of daily slights. Palfrey.

Ordeal. [Obs.] Chaucer.

Of or pertaining to trial by ordeal. [Obs.] Bp. Hall.

To cause to advance by stages of progress; to carry on with success through an ordeal, examination, or action; specifically, to give legal or official sanction to; to ratify; to enact; to approve as valid and just; as, he passed the bill through the committee; the senate passed the law.

him to make oath that they believes he swore truly; or vulgar, which was by fire or water ordeal, or by combat. See Ordeal. Wharton. Let him put me to my purgation. Shak.

To clear from accusation, or the charge of a crime or misdemeanor, as by oath or in ordeal.

ark of a West African leguminous tree (Erythrophlæum Guineense, used by the natives as an ordeal poison, and also medicinally; -- called also mancona bark.

The ordeal tree. See under Ordeal.