English

Verb

break on the wheel

1. (transitive) To fasten (a criminal etc.) to a wheel in order to break his limbs or beat him to death.
   • 2002, Colin Jones, The Great Nation, Penguin 2003, p. 270:

     Despite protesting his innocence under torture, the sexagenarian father was condemned by the Parlement in March 1762 to be broken on the wheel, a fate which he bore with stoical fortitude.