torture
Americannoun
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the act of inflicting excruciating pain, as punishment or revenge, as a means of getting a confession or information, or for sheer cruelty.
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a method of inflicting such pain.
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Often tortures. the pain or suffering caused or undergone.
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extreme anguish of body or mind; agony.
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a cause of severe pain or anguish.
verb (used with object)
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to subject to torture.
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to afflict with severe pain of body or mind.
My back is torturing me.
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to force or extort by torture.
We'll torture the truth from his lips!
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to twist, force, or bring into some unnatural position or form.
trees tortured by storms.
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to distort or pervert (language, meaning, etc.).
verb
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to cause extreme physical pain to, esp in order to extract information, break resistance, etc
to torture prisoners
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to give mental anguish to
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to twist into a grotesque form
noun
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physical or mental anguish
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the practice of torturing a person
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a cause of mental agony or worry
Usage
The adjective torturous is sometimes confused with tortuous. One speaks of a torturous experience, i.e. one that involves pain or suffering, but of a tortuous road, i.e. one that winds or twists
Synonym Usage
See torment.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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pretorturenoun
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self-torturenoun
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torturernoun
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overtortureverb (used with object)
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self-torturedadjective
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self-torturingadjective
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torturableadjective
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torturedadjective
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torturesomeadjective
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torturingadjective
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untorturedadjective
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torturedlyadverb
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torturinglyadverb
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torturouslyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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torturesimple
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torturessimple
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have torturedperfect
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has torturedperfect
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am torturingprogressive
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are torturingprogressive
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is torturingprogressive
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have been torturingperfect progressive
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has been torturingperfect progressive
Past
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torturedsimple
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had torturedperfect
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was torturingprogressive
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were torturingprogressive
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had been torturingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of torture
First recorded in 1530–40, torture is from the Late Latin word tortūra a twisting, torment, torture. See tort, -ure
Explanation
To torture is to torment or purposefully put someone through intense pain or agony. The word torture comes from the word for "harm." It can refer to the deliberate infliction of physical or mental suffering in order to punish or obtain information; the act of distorting something, so it means something it wasn't intended to mean; or extreme mental distress or unbearable physical pain not necessarily inflicted by another.
Vocabulary lists containing torture
"Romeo and Juliet" by William Shakespeare, Act III
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Twists and Turns: Tor
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That Hurts! Synonyms for "Pain"
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
No doubt, a shameless data miner can torture the data long enough to get it to support any conclusion.
From MarketWatch ● Jul. 23, 2026
In cases where Washington is barred from sending people home -- after US judges found they likely face torture or persecution, for example -- it has sent deportees to "third countries" such as Ghana.
From Barron's ● Jun. 30, 2026
As it stands, the predictor has them playing Mexico on Tuesday - a shot at redemption or another trip to a torture chamber?
From BBC ● Jun. 25, 2026
“For decades, the United States has allowed individuals and families who are fleeing persecution, torture and death to ask for protection at U.S. borders.”
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 25, 2026
Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees.
From "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Brontë
Open is often regarded as the most challenging of the four majors, and there isn’t a host that tortures the world’s best players quite like Shinnecock.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 18, 2026
Yet, Paltrow makes it look like easy lifting, as if dodging the universe’s cerebral tortures were as low-effort as the #BoyfriendBreakfasts she’s taken to posting on Instagram.
From Salon ● Dec. 22, 2025
I left them, so that’s what tortures me.
From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 7, 2025
Notable are any Sally moments, especially when sewing her appendages back on, and the neon-greenish nightmare of Oogie Boogie as he tortures Santa Claus.
From Washington Times ● Oct. 26, 2023
Marie-Laure tortures herself with daydreams of feasts laid out on long tables: platters of sliced pork loin, roasted apples, banana flambe, pineapples with whipped cream.
From "All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr
Ten years ago, Peter Cipriano, a graduate student at Baruch College, wrote his master’s thesis about one of New York City’s most tortured civic failings: its inability to fix Penn Station.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 13, 2026
“We would get together and have these very long conversations,” says director Rebecca Miller, who interviewed American cinema’s great poet of tortured masculinity over five years.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 3, 2026
All the while, a tortured diplomatic process, involving multiple actors, is playing out in the background.
From BBC ● May 28, 2026
Clearly Ms. Footer conceives of Bradley as something of a tortured Romantic; what’s unclear—in fact, what is unknowable—is whether Bradley did himself.
From The Wall Street Journal ● May 20, 2026
“That is my least concern; I am, by a course of strange events, become the most miserable of mortals. Persecuted and tortured as I am and have been, can death be any evil to me?”
From "Frankenstein" by Mary Shelley
They also needed a city that would prepare them for a World Cup of midsummer heat waves—without torturing them in the meantime.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 9, 2026
It can be a year away, and it’s right here torturing me, which is I think why I’m a bit of a commitment-phobe.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 2, 2026
Then again, Egg’s royal command stops Aerion’s guards from torturing Ser Duncan after the hedge knight beats up the prince for breaking a fair maiden’s finger.
From Salon ● Feb. 23, 2026
India's batters are torturing England in this series.
From BBC ● Jul. 12, 2025
“This little tyrant’s torturing us/” 1957 Friday evening, July 26 The capital I have been a disaster diary keeper.
From "In the Time of the Butterflies" by Julia Alvarez
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
