Brewer's: Catharine Wheel

(A). A sort of firework. (See below.)

Catharine Wheels
To turn Catharine Wheels. To turn head over heels on the hands. Boys in the streets, etc., often do so to catch a penny or so from trippers and others.

A Catharine-wheel window.
A wheel-window, sometimes called a rose-window, with radiating divisions. St. Catharine was a virgin of royal descent in Alexandria, who publicly confessed the Christian faith at a sacrificial feast appointed by the Emperor Maximinus, for which confession she was put to death by torture by means of a wheel like that of a chaff-cutter.
Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
Catharine-wheel Politicians
Catharine Theot
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