torture

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The infliction of severe pain or anguish, especially as an interrogation technique or punishment; (usually in the plural) a technique, method, or device which is designed to inflict such anguish.

   People confess to anything under torture.

2. 2
   noun

   An unpleasant sensation or its infliction: embarrassment, heartache, etc.

   Every time she says 'goodbye' it is torture!

3. 3
   verb

   To intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on (someone), usually with the aim of forcing confessions or punishing them.

   1 August 2014, Barack Obama, "Press Conference by the President"; transcript published online by the Obama White House Archives, [https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/08/01/press-conference-president [1]]. With respect to the larger point of the RDI report itself, even before I came into office I was very clear that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did some things that were contrary to our values.

4. 4
   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

5. 5
   noun

   the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean

6. 6
   noun

   intense feelings of suffering

7. 7
   noun

   extreme mental distress

8. 8
   noun

   unbearable physical pain

Etymology

From Middle English torture, from Old French torture, from Late Latin tortūra (“a twisting, writhing, of bodily pain, a griping colic;” in Medieval Latin “pain inflicted by judicial or ecclesiastical authority as a means of persuasion, torture”), from Latin tortus (whence also tort), past participle of torquēre (“to twist”).