IRON MAIDEN • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Iron maiden

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/ˈaɪərn mˈeɪdən/ Listen

Iron maiden

noun

Instrument of torture consisting of a hollow iron frame shaped like the human body and lined with spikes to impale the victim.

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Etymology of 'Iron maiden'

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"Iron maiden" Quotes from Famous Books

... freak of the Gothic period was the making of ivory statuettes of the Virgin, which opened down the centre (like the Iron Maiden of Nueremberg), and disclosed within a series of Scriptural scenes sculptured on the back and on both sides. These images were called Vierges Ouvrantes, and were decidedly more ...

— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison

... would have suffered in his place. He mourned not over nor realized the grief of her tender heart when she should read his letter, otherwise he could not have sent it. He writhed under his own pain alone, and his duty hugged him hard, like the iron maiden of the old tortures, but ...

— Evelina's Garden • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... could not be jealous!" Clara cried, stung by the very passion; and she ran through her brain for a suggestion to win a sign of meltingness if not esteem from her father. She was not an iron maiden, but one among the nervous natures which live largely in the moment, though she was then sacrificing it to her nature's deep dislike. "You may be ...

— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... led them through the terrible museum, discanting in the same gay voice and with the same smiling air on all the murderous engines and implements of torture. First in German and then in English she explained the fearful uses of the Iron Maiden, she winningly illustrated the action of the racks and wheels on which men had been stretched and broken, and she sweetly vaunted a sword which had beheaded eight hundred persons. When she took the established fee from March ...

— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells