blood-eagle

Verb

blood-eagle (third-person singular simple present blood-eagles, present participle blood-eagling, simple past and past participle blood-eagled)

1. (transitive) To execute by blood eagle.
   • Of the ships and the stockade nothing remained but hot cinders. Half the guard were dead, and old Arnwulf, the captain, lay blood-eagled on the edge of the tide. The others had gone they knew not where, but doubtless into the forests.1921, John Buchan, The Path of the King, New York: George H. Doran, page 31
   • He stood with one hand twisted in Garm's collar, Wave-flame naked in the other, looking down at the torn and broken body of his foster-father, that had even yet something of unbreakable defiance about it; and his face was a white mask in the torchlight. "It may be that it will not be given to me to...1956, Rosemary Sutcliff, The Shield Ring, Front Street, published 2007, →ISBN, page 58