Also U.S. vise-like. [f. VICE sb.2 5.] Resembling (that of) a vice; firmly tenacious or compressive.
1844. Mrs. Ann S. Stephens, in Graham’s Mag., XXIV. 281/2. The vise-like grasp that had prisoned her finger gave way.
1845. Bailey, Festus (ed. 2), 127. Traitors! that vice-like fang the hand ye lick.
1856. Emerson, Eng. Traits, Lit., ¶ 1. What he relished in Dante is the vise-like tenacity with which he holds a mental image before the eyes, as if it were a scutcheon painted on a shield.
1857. Cooper’s Clarksburg (WV) Register, 31 July, 1/5. At last the head of the Iroquois suddenly came in contact with the stunning point of a rock that protruded from the bank, stunning him so that he relaxed his vice like grip of Death’s throat.
1890. D. Davidson, Mem. Long Life, x. 258. [He] seized my hand in his vice-like fist.
