Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home 		English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Torture   /tˈɔrtʃər/   Listen
noun
Torture  n.  
1.
Extreme pain; anguish of body or mind; pang; agony; torment; as, torture of mind. "Ghastly spasm or racking torture."
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, which 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."


verb
torture  v. t.  (past & past part. tortured; pres. part. torturing)  
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.
3.
To wrest from the proper meaning; to distort.
4.
To keep on the stretch, as a bow. (Obs.) "The bow tortureth the string."





Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48


Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words


Share |




"Torture" Quotes from Famous Books



... that had occurred during a few years past, in efforts among the slaves to learn to read and write, was magnified and construed as pointing toward a long and settled purpose among the slaves to rise in insurrection. A majority of this committee decided by whipping and other torture to compel confessions from all these marked slaves, and then to hang them. A number of the committee resigned because they would not consent to these severe measures. Many negroes were dragged out of their cabins or yards without knowing ...
— A Woman's Life-Work - Labors and Experiences • Laura S. Haviland
... the sparrow; the fox devours the young rabbit; the cat leaps from under a bush and kills the mother robin while the young are left to starve in the nest. There is neither right nor wrong among the brutes because they have no moral sense. They do not kill for revenge nor torture for the love of cruelty, as Comrade Bannerman would in praying that the train be wrecked and the rich men burned to death in the ruin. The beasts can feel no pity, no sympathy, no regret, for nature gave them no conscience. But ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... place of punishment one of terrible frigidity. Somewhere on the other side of the Tweed and Cheviots was the spot selected by the Celt of southern Britain. On the other hand, the eastern mind, which knew the terrors of a sun-smitten land and of a heat that was torture, had for a hell a fiery ...
— A Book of Myths • Jean Lang
... trembled like aspen-leaves; the chief looked up full in our faces, kneeling on the ground; light seemed to flash from his dark rolling eyes, his body was convulsed all over, as though he were enduring the utmost torture, and with a timorous, yet undefinable expression of countenance, in which all the passions of our nature were strangely blended, he drooped his head, eagerly grasped our proffered hands, and burst ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... examination being made whether he were slain or not: it was found that he had drunk much wine, and over-lading himself with pillage, and hasting to go before us, had lost himself in the woods. And as we afterwards knew, he was taken by the Spaniards that evening: and upon torture, discovered unto them where we had ...
— Sir Francis Drake Revived • Philip Nichols


More quotes...


Copyright © 2025 e-Free Translation.com