Chinese water torture noun2 •A form of torture in which water is repetitively dripped onto the forehead of a victim who is restrained.It has come to be known as Chinese water torture, but was actually invented by a sixteenth-century Italian lawyer named Hippolytus de Marsiliis. — 2002 •Any repeated irritation that builds to deliver cumulative damage.The growth of subsidies is a Chinese water torture on individual liberty. — 1994
