thumbikins
English
Noun
thumbikins (plural thumbikins)
- An instrument of torture for compressing the thumb; a thumbkin or thumbscrew.
- 1820, [Walter Scott], chapter V, in The Abbot. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and John Ballantyne, […], →OCLC, pages 173–174:
- [S]end me that hag hither; she shall avouch what it was that she hath given to the wretch Dryfesdale, or the pilniewinks and thumbikins shall wrench it out of her finger-joints.
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