Ordeal bean. (Bot.) See Calabar bean, under Calabar. -- Ordeal root
(Bot.) the root of a species of Strychnos growing in West Africa, used,
like the ordeal bean, in trials for witchcraft. -- Ordeal tree (Bot.),
a poisonous tree of Madagascar (Tanghinia, or Cerbera, venenata).
Persons suspected of crime are forced to eat the seeds of the plumlike
fruit, and criminals are put to death by being pricked with a lance
dipped in the juice of the seeds.
Or"de*al, a. Of or pertaining to trial by ordeal.
Or"der (?), n. [OE. ordre, F. ordre, fr. L. ordo, ordinis. Cf. Ordain,
Ordinal.]
1. Regular arrangement; any methodical or established succession or
harmonious relation; method; system; as: (a) Of material things, like
the books in a library. (b) Of intellectual notions or ideas, like the
topics of a discource. (c) Of periods of time or occurrences, and the
like.
The side chambers were . . . thirty in order.
Ezek. xli. 6.
Bright-harnessed angels sit in order serviceable.
Milton.
Good order is the foundation of all good things.
Burke.
2. Right arrangement; a normal, correct, or fit condition; as, the
house is in order; the machinery is out of order. Locke.
3. The customary mode of procedure; established system, as in the
conduct of debates or the transaction of business; usage; custom;
fashion. Dantiel.
And, pregnant with his grander thought, Brought the old order into
doubt.
Emerson.
4. Conformity with law or decorum; freedom from disturbance; general
tranquillity; public quiet; as, to preserve order in a community or an
assembly.
5. That which prescribes a method of procedure; a rule or regulation
made by competent authority; as, the rules and orders of the senate.
The church hath authority to establish that for an order at one
time which at another time it may abolish.
Hooker.