torture Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun extreme mental distress
    torment; anguish.
  2. noun unbearable physical pain
    torment.
  3. noun intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain
    agony; torment.
    • an agony of doubt
    • the torments of the damned
  4. noun the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean
    straining; twisting; overrefinement; distortion.
  5. noun the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason
    torturing.
    • it required unnatural torturing to extract a confession
  6. verb torment emotionally or mentally
    torment; excruciate; rack.
  7. verb subject to torture
    torment; excruciate.
    • The sinners will be tormented in Hell, according to the Bible

WordNet

Tor"ture noun
Etymology
F.,fr.L. tortura, fr. torquere, tortum, to twist, rack, torture; probably akin to Gr. tre`pein to turn, G. drechsein to turn on a lathe, and perhaps to E. queer. Cf. Contort, Distort, Extort, Retort, Tart, n., Torch, Torment, Tortion, Tort, Trope.
Definitions
  1. Extreme pain; anguish of body or mind; pang; agony; torment; as, torture of mind. Shak.
    Ghastly spasm or racking torture. Milton.
  2. Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an accused person, as by water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack or wheel.
  3. The act or process of torturing.
    Torture, whitch had always been deciared illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of May, 1640. Macaulay.
Tor"ture transitive verb
Etymology
Cf. F. Torturer.
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Tortured present participle & verbal noun Torturing
Definitions
  1. To put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex.
  2. To punish with torture; to put to the rack; as, to torture an accused person. Shak.
  3. To wrest from the proper meaning; to distort. Jar. Taylor.
  4. To keep on the stretch, as a bow. Obs.
    The bow tortureth the string. Bacon.

Webster 1913