ORDEAL • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Ordeal

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/ɔrdˈil/ Listen

noun

Ordeal n.

An ancient form of test to determine guilt or innocence, by appealing to a supernatural decision, once common in Europe, and still practiced in the East and by savage tribes. Note: In England ordeal by fire and ordeal by water were used, the former confined to persons of rank, the latter to the common people. The ordeal by fire was performed, either by handling red-hot iron, or by walking barefoot and blindfold over red-hot plowshares, laid at unequal distances. If the person escaped unhurt, he was adjudged innocent; otherwise he was condemned as guilty. The ordeal by water was performed, either by plunging the bare arm to the elbow in boiling water, an escape from injury being taken as proof of innocence, or by casting the accused person, bound hand and foot, into a river or pond, when if he floated it was an evidence of guilt, but if he sunk he was acquitted. It is probable that the proverbial phrase, to go through fire and water, denoting severe trial or danger, is derived from the ordeal. See Wager of battle, under Wager.

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 venenata syn. Cerbera venenata). Persons suspected of crime are forced to eat the seeds of the plumlike fruit, and criminals are put to death by being pricked with a lance dipped in the juice of the seeds.

adjective

Ordeal adj. Of or pertaining to trial by ordeal.

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Etymology of 'Ordeal'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Ordeal" Quotes from Famous Books

... motive to which none but minds of some refinement are accessible, they are not below it. Let them be sure that they do not take dulness for integrity, and that the virtue, proof to intellectual triumphs, and disdaining "the last infirmity of noble minds," would not sink if exposed to the ordeal of a service of plate, or admission in some frivolous coterie. For ourselves we will only say, "Amicus Plato sed ...

— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various

... chance for a sober-minded guest to escape his searching eye, and Blyth Scudamore (appointed to represent the officers of the Leda, and therefore the hero of the evening) felt as happy as a dog being led to be drowned, in view of this liquid ordeal. For Blyth was a temperate and moderate young man, neither such a savage as to turn his wine to poison, nor yet so Anti-Christian as to ...

— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore

... an instant appeared like his old self, while the games of euchre at Georgie K.'s were not resumed, nor the boyish enjoyment of things, which James now recognized to have been simply feverish attempts to live through the horrible ordeal of his life and keep his sanity, while he had now settled down into a state of austere gloom, yet he begun again to attend to his practice and to take interest in it. Clemency remained away for a ...

— 'Doc.' Gordon • Mary E. Wilkins-Freeman

... the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Romish system. Once more she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through the mere force of resolution: with inward remorse and shame she looked back on her former failure, and resolved to conquer in this second ordeal. She did conquer: but the victory cost her dear. She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old parsonage-house, and desolate Yorkshire hills. A very few years more, and she looked ...

— Poems • (AKA Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte) Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell

... long spells of sleep supervened and brought his pulse down from 136 to 84. His powers of recovery surprised every one about him. By 6th March he was so far well as to be allowed to see the Dukes of York, Kent, and Cumberland. Not until 9th March did he undergo the more trying ordeal of seeing the Prince of Wales. On that same day he requested to see Pitt, who very properly declined, suggesting, with all deference, that Addington was the proper person ...

— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

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