thumbkin

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“
Twenty men were hanged on one gibbet in Edinburgh and many others in various parts of the country: crowds were shipped off to the plantations: torture was freely applied, and the ingenious devices of the boot and the thumbkin were in daily requisition.

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Definitions (2)

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  1. A thumb-screw, or set of thumb-screws; the torture by this instrument. See cut under thumb-screw. [Scots.] Bloody rope, and swift bullet, and trenchant swords, and pain of boots and thumkins. Scott, Heart of Mid-Lothian, x.

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Examples (8)

  • Twenty men were hanged on one gibbet in Edinburgh and many others in various parts of the country: crowds were shipped off to the plantations: torture was freely applied, and the ingenious devices of the boot and the thumbkin were in daily requisition. —  Claverhouse
  • 'Dance, thumbkin, dance--dance, ye merry men every one.' —  Ruth
  • 'Dance, thumbkin, dance -- dance, ye merry men every one.' —  Ruth
  • "The monks of Vera Cruz can best tell thee where little 'thumbkin' is." —  Sea-Dogs All! A Tale of Forest and Sea
  • [12] The torture of the thumbkin is said to have been introduced into —  Claverhouse
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Etymologies (1)

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (1)

  1. Also thumkin, thumbikin; from thumb + diminutive -kin.
 

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