Word.ws English Dictionary

pilnie-winks

pilnie-winks noun: an ancient form of torture for the fingers.

Noun

pilnie-winks

  1. (historical) An ancient form of torture for the fingers.
    • [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.1820, [Walter Scott], chapter V², in The Abbot. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne & Co.] for Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, […]; and for Archibald Constable and Company, and...

Origin of pilnie-winks

Corruption of periwinkle.

Questions about pilnie-winks

What does pilnie-winks mean?
Pilnie-winks means an ancient form of torture for the fingers.
What part of speech is pilnie-winks?
Pilnie-winks is a noun.

Words near pilnie-winks in the dictionary

  1. pilly
  2. pilly willies
  3. pilly willy
  4. pilm
  5. Pilmoor
  6. pilnie-winks
  7. Pilning
  8. Pilning and Severn Beach
  9. pilo-
  10. pilobolaceous
  11. pilocaine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: pilnie-winks (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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