IMPALE • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Impale

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/ɪmpˈeɪl/ Listen

verb

Impale v. t. (past & past part. impaled; pres. part. impaling)

To pierce with a pale; to put to death by fixing on a sharp stake. See Empale. "Then with what life remains, impaled, and left To writhe at leisure round the bloody stake."

To inclose, as with pales or stakes; to surround. "Impale him with your weapons round about." "Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire."

(Her.) To join, as two coats of arms on one shield, palewise; hence, to join in honorable mention. "Ordered the admission of St. Patrick to the same to be matched and impaled with the blessed Virgin in the honor thereof."

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Etymology of 'Impale'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Impale" Quotes from Famous Books

... remarkable for the astonishing [v.04 p.0584] strength of its turf-built and earthen ramparts and ravelins, and for a remarkable series of defensive pits, reminiscent of Caesar's lilia at Alesia, plainly intended to break an enemy's charge, and either provided with stakes to impale the assailant or covered over with hurdles or the like to deceive him. Besides the dozen forts on the wall, one or two outposts may have been held at Ardoch and Abernethy along the natural route which runs by Stirling and Perth to the lowlands of the east coast. This frontier was ...

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various

... horrible impiety art thou committing! what, ravishing the wife of my bosom!—Take him away; ganch him[5], impale him, rid the world of such ...

— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden

... and inevitable deductions, and either horn of that cruel dilemma of logic is enough to impale you. If you escape them, you do it because you do not attract notice, and this, in itself, is failure. And in any event, to gain the substantial confidence of the people you must spend several years of right living among them. And you have no time to waste in building up confidence at ...

— The Young Man and the World • Albert J. Beveridge

... to have been the opinion of Augustin Robespierre, the former that of his sister Marie, for the time an intimate friend of the Buonaparte sisters. Both at least have left these opinions on record in letters and memoirs. There is no need to impale ourselves on either horn, if we consider the youth as he was, feeling no responsibility whatever for the conditions into which he was thrown, taking the world as he found it and using its opportunities while they lasted. For the time and in that place there were terrorists: ...

— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... third night the devils once more found the miller in the apartment. In dismay Boiteux suggested that he should be roasted on a spit and eaten, but unluckily for them they took a long time to come to this conclusion, and when they were about to impale their victim on the spit, the cock crew and they were forced to withdraw, howling in baffled rage. The Princess arrived as before, and was delighted to see that this time her champion did not ...

— Legends & Romances of Brittany • Lewis Spence

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