scavenger's daughter

American  

noun

1. an instrument of torture that doubled over and squeezed the body so strongly and violently that blood was brought forth from the ears and nose: invented in 16th-century England.

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Etymology

Origin of scavenger's daughter

1555–65; scavenger, alteration of the name of its inventor, Leonard Skevington, Lieutenant of the Tower of London under Henry VIII

Example Sentences

Leech, for instance, never produced anything which equalled Fagin in the Condemned Cell; The Murder of Sir Rowland Trenchard; Xit Wedded to the Scavenger’s Daughter; Jack o’ Lantern; or the reverie of the Triumph of Cupid.

From Project Gutenberg

I have neither read 'The Scavenger's Daughter,' nor 'The Life of Obadiah Zecariah Jinkings;' but, judging from the opinion here expressed, I take them to be immortal works.

From Project Gutenberg

"Is it of the scavenger's daughter that you speak?"

From Project Gutenberg

I saw at the same time a beautiful little instrument for the propagation of kindness, called "The Scavenger's Daughter."

From Project Gutenberg

And I saw there at the same time another instrument, called "the scavenger's daughter," which resembles a pair of shears, with handles where handles ought to be, but at the points as well.

From Project Gutenberg