English

Noun

Catherine wheel ‎(plural Catherine wheels)

1. A breaking wheel.
   • 1992, David Hugh Farmer, The Oxford Dictionary of Saints, 3rd ed., page 88

     […] her tortures consisted of being broken on a wheel (later called Catherine wheel), but the machine broke down injuring bystanders; Catherine was beheaded.

   • 2008, Peter Carey, His Illegal Self, page 181

     She only lied to the boy to keep him from hurt, and for her sin her intestines were pulled from her on a Catherine wheel.

2. (chiefly heraldry) The image of a breaking wheel, or wheel with spikes on it.
   • 1621, Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, II.i.1:

     Sorcerers are too common; cunning men, wizards, and white witches […] have commonly St. Catherine's wheel printed in the roof of their mouth, or in some other part about them […].

3. A firework that rotates when lit.
4. (gymnastics) A cartwheel move.
   • 1897, W.S. Maugham, Lisa of Lambeth, chapter 1

     […] she went on, making turns and twists, flourishing her skirts, kicking higher and higher, and finally, among a volley of shouts, fell on her hands and turned head over heels in a magnificent catharine-wheel; then scrambling to her feet again, she tumbled into the arms of a young man standing in the front of the ring.

5. (architecture) A rose window.