Definitions
from The Century Dictionary.
- An instrument of torture resembling the boot, used by the Inquisition.
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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You need not even believe -- though it is too likely to be true -- that that great fireplace in the little first-floor room served for the torture of the scarpines.
Prose Idylls, New and Old Charles Kingsley 1847
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"Pull his feet out of the embers; I dare say he would have been glad enough to put us to the scarpines; but that's no reason we should put him to them."
Westward Ho!, or, the voyages and adventures of Sir Amyas Leigh, Knight, of Burrough, in the county of Devon, in the reign of her most glorious majesty Queen Elizabeth Charles Kingsley 1847
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“Pull his feet out of the embers; I dare say he would have been glad enough to put us to the scarpines; but that’s no reason we should put him to them.”
Westward Ho! 2007
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