What is "breaking wheel"

n. (label en chiefly historical) A form of execution, among the ancient Europeans, in which the victim is fastened to a wheel and subjected to blows.

The breaking wheel, also known as the Catherine wheel or simply the wheel, was a torture device used for capital punishment from antiquity into early modern times for public execution by breaking the criminal's bones/ bludgeoning him to death. As a form of execution, it was used from classical times into the 18th century; as a form of post mortem punishment of the criminal, the wheel was still in use in 19th-century Germany.