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pull teeth

vb. 1 (context dentistry English) To remove teeth, usually because they are diseased or damaged. 2 (context idiomatic English) To do something that is especially difficult or effortful, to get blood out of a stone.

Usage examples of "pull teeth".

She meandered through a story about the Quadling glassblower named Turtle Heart, and Melena's uncertainty whether Nessarose was his child or Frex's, and the visit to Yackle, about whom she could remember nothing else but the name, the pills, and the prophecy, can't pull teeth from a hen so stop trying.

He either didn't like to talk to humans about Faery, or he didn't like to talk to her about Faery, because she'd had to pull teeth to get anything out of him at all.

But it's easier to pull teeth from an alligator than it is to get him to talk about his painting.

Then he began showing them various curios from the slave trade, advertisements, pictures of slave ships, of slaves in steerage, of the auction block, an iron bar used as currency in buying slaves, a whip made of rhinoceros hide used by the Africans to drive the slaves to the coast, a branding silver, a cat-o'-nine-tails used on the slaves aboard ship, a pincers to pull teeth -- to what purpose they couldn't tell.

Did you believe that in Hell you would find swords, daggers, wheels, razors, streams of sulphur, potions of molten lead, frozen waters, cauldrons and grates, saws and clubs, awls to gouge out eyes, pincers to pull teeth, combs to rip open flanks, chains to pound the bones, animals that gnaw, hooks that pull, thongs that choke, racks, crosses, goads, and axes?