Ordeal

n. trial; trying experience, hardship

Trial by ordeal is a judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused is determined by subjecting them to a painful task. If either the task is completed without injury, or the injuries sustained are healed quickly, the accused is considered innocent. In medieval Europe, like trial by combat, it was considered a judicium Dei: a procedure based on the premise that God would help the innocent by performing a miracle on their behalf. The practice has much earlier roots however, being attested in polytheistic cultures as far back as the Code of Hammurabi, and in animist tribal societies, such as the trial by ingestion of "red water" (calabar bean) in Sierra Leone, where the intended effect is magical rather than invocation of a deity's justice.
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Noun
1. a severe or trying experience
(hypernym) experience
2. a primitive method of determining a person's guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused person to dangerous or painful tests believed to be under divine control; escape was usually taken as a sign of innocence
(synonym) trial by ordeal
(hypernym) trial

(n.)
Any severe trial, or test; a painful experience.
  

(n.)
An ancient form of test to determine guilt or innocence, by appealing to a supernatural decision, -- once common in Europe, and still practiced in the East and by savage tribes.
  

(a.)
Of or pertaining to trial by ordeal.
  

An obsolete common law practice, discouraged by the Church, which submitted the accused, or the accuser, or both, to the Judgement of God, usually with fire or water. Whoever died, or whose wounds festered, was considered guilty.

An ancient superstitious mode of trial. When in a criminal case the accused was arraigned, be might select the mode of trial either by God and his country, that is, by jury; or by God only, that is by ordeal.

The trial by ordeal was either by fire or by water. Those who were tried by the former passed barefooted and blindfolded over nine hot glowing ploughshares; or were to carry burning irons in their hands; and accordingly as they escaped or not, they were acquitted or condemned. The water ordeal was performed either in hot or cold water. In cold water, the parties suspected were adjudged innocent if their bodies were not borne up by the water contrary to the course of nature; and if, after putting their bare arms or legs into scalding water they came out unhurt they were taken to be innocent of the crime.

It was impiously supposed that God would, by the mere contrivance of man, exercise his power in favor of the innocent.
   

This entry contains material from Bouvier's Legal Dictionary, a work published in the 1850's.