Word.ws English Dictionary

peine forte et dure

peine forte et dure noun: crushing, an old form of punishment (torture) in which the prisoner's body was pressed with heavy weights.

peine forte et dure: crushing, an old form of punishment (torture) in which the prisoner's body was pressed with heavy...
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Noun

peine forte et dure (uncountable)

  1. (historical) Crushing, an old form of punishment (torture) in which the prisoner's body was pressed with heavy weights.
    • It was a solid structure, with massy door, sooner than open which in the absence of the ‘Dominie’, we would all have willingly perished by the peine forte et dure.1839, Edgar Allan Poe, William Wilson

Origin of peine forte et dure

Law French, from Middle French peine forte et dure (“severe and hard punishment”).

Questions about peine forte et dure

What does peine forte et dure mean?
Peine forte et dure means crushing, an old form of punishment (torture) in which the prisoner's body was pressed with heavy weights.
What part of speech is peine forte et dure?
Peine forte et dure is a noun.

Words near peine forte et dure in the dictionary

  1. peinct
  2. peincted
  3. peincting
  4. peincts
  5. peine
  6. peine forte et dure
  7. peined
  8. Peines
  9. peining
  10. Peinovich
  11. peins

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: peine forte et dure (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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