torture

Definitions

1. 1.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.
2. 2.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.
3. 3.To put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex.
4. 4.To punish with torture; to put to the rack; as, to torture an accused person. Shak.
5. 5.To wrest from the proper meaning; to distort. Jar. Taylor.
6. 6.To keep on the stretch, as a bow. [Obs.] The bow tortureth the string. Bacon.

Source: Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, 1913 edition (public domain, via GCIDE / Project Gutenberg).

Related questions

• What does "torture" mean?

Reverse-dictionary questions

Definition-first questions whose answer is torture.

• What is to put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex called?
• What is to punish with torture; to put to the rack; as, to torture an accused person. Shak called?
• What is to wrest from the proper meaning; to distort. Jar. Taylor called?
• What is to keep on the stretch, as a bow. [Obs.] The bow tortureth the string. Bacon called?