torture

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   The act of causing someone severe pain, often to punish them or force a confession.

   People will confess to anything under torture.

2. 2
   verb

   To deliberately cause someone severe pain or suffering.

   The prisoners were tortured for information.

3. 3
   noun

   Great mental or emotional suffering.

   Waiting for the results was sheer torture.

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”).

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