Now rare. [a. OF. tourmenterie (1427 in Godef.), office of a tormentor or executioner, f. tormenteur TORMENTOR: see -RY.]
† 1. A company or body of tormentors or executioners. Obs. (Cf. Jewry, yeomanry.]
a. 1350. St. Andrew, 108, in Horstm., Altengl. Leg. (1881), 5. Egeas þan … Sent efter al his turmentry, And bad þam … ordan a cros. Ibid., 208. Both he and al his turmentri.
† 2. The infliction or suffering of torture or torment, as by executioners or fiends. Obs.
1375. XI Pains of Hell, 159, in O. E. Misc., 215. A sorouful syȝt, a hore hold mon, Be-twene iiij fyndis in turmentre.
c. 1412. Hoccleve, De Reg. Princ., 2825. He snybbed is, and put to tormentrie.
1534. More, Comf. agst. Trib., III. xvii. (1847), 253. All the tormentry that the devil … could devise.
3. Tormenting feeling; severe suffering pain, or vexation. Now rare.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Wife’s Prol., 251. Thanne seistow it is a tormentrie To soffren hire pride and hire malencolie.
1434. Misyn, Mending of Life, i. 106. Ioy or turmentry we sal resayfe.
1509. Fisher, Serm. Funeral Hen. VII., Wks. (1876), 279. I founde in them all but vanyte & turmentry of soule.
1885. R. F. Burton, Arab. Nts., III. 19. O joy of Hell and Heaven! whose tormentry enquickens frame and soul.
