Also 6 -ido. Pl. -oes. [a. L. torpēdo stiffness, numbness, also the cramp-fish or electric ray, f. torpēre to be stiff or numb; = Sp., Pg. torpedo, It. torpedine. Cf. F. torpille, It. torpiglia from the same verb.]
1. A flat fish of the genus Torpedo or family Torpedinidæ, having an almost circular body with tapering tail, and characterized by the faculty of emitting electric discharges; the electric ray; also called cramp-fish, cramp-ray, numb-fish.
c. 1520. L. Andrewe, Noble Lyfe, xcii., in Babees Bk. (1868), 239. Torpido is a fisshe, but who-so handeleth hym shalbe lame & dele of lymmes that he shall fele no thyng.
1589. R. Harvey, Pl. Perc. (1860), 13. Like the fish Torpedo, which being towchd sends her venime alongst line and angle rod, till it cease on the finger, and so mar a fisher for euer.
1603. Sir C. Heydon, Jud. Astrol., xxiii. 547. Neither doth the Torpedo benumme other things, though it benummeth the fishers hand.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., III. vii. 119. Torpedoes deliver their opium at a distance, and stupifie beyond themselves.
1772. Chron., in Ann. Reg., Nov., 136/1. Mr. Walsh touched the back of the torpedo; when all the five persons … felt a shock at the same instant, which differed in nothing from the Leyden experiment.
1815. J. Smith, Panorama Sci. & Art, II. 253. The torpedo is a flat fish, of the ray tribe, very seldom exceeding twenty inches in length, and twenty pounds in weight…. It inhabits the Mediterranean and the North Seas.
1879. E. P. Wright, Anim. Life, 465. The Torpedo (T. vulgaris), is found occasionally on the south coasts of England and Ireland.
b. fig. One who or that which has a benumbing influence.
1590. Marlowe, Edw. II., I. iv. Fair queen, forbear to angle for the fish … I mean that vile torpedo, Gaveston.
1762. Goldsm., Nash, 34. He used to call a pen his torpedo whenever he grasped it, it numbed all his faculties.
c. 1855. B. S. Hollis, Hymn-bk. C’tess Huntingdon’s Conn., Pref. The torpedo of formality had benumbed the churches.
2. orig. A case charged with gunpowder designed to explode under water after a given interval so as to destroy any vessel in its immediate vicinity; later also, a self-propelled submarine missile, usually cigar-shaped, carrying an explosive which is fired by impact with its objective.
The original torpedo was a towed or drifting submarine mine, still used to defend channels, harbors, and the like (drifting or moored torpedo); it was towed at an angle by means of a spar extending at right angles (otter or towing torpedo), or carried on a ram or projecting pole (boom-, outrigger-, spar-torpedo).
1807. (Aug. 14) W. Irving, Salmag., xiii. (1855), 135. A torpedo; by which the stoutest line-of-battle ship … may be … decomposed [i.e., blown up] in a twinkling.
1807. (Sept. 6) Admiralty Secretary In-Lett., No. 4353 (P.R.O.). A description of the machine invented by Mr. Robert Fulton for exploding under ships’ bottoms and by him called the torpedo.
1810. Fulton, Torpedo War (N. Y.), 4.
1868. Daily News, 3 Nov. The particular kind of torpedo used on this occasion is an American invention, which was found very effective in the defence of the harbour of Charleston.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., s.v., The drifting torpedo … is carried against the enemy’s works or vessels by the current,… the tide, or … the wind…. Anchored torpedoes are attached to mooring piles or anchors.
1880. Standard, 29 Dec., 6/1. In 1777 a schooner was destroyed in the harbour of New London, Connecticut, by a drifting percussion torpedo.
3. a. Milit. A shell furnished with a percussion or friction device buried in the ground, which explodes when the ground is trodden upon; a petard. U.S. b. A toy consisting of fulminating powder and fine gravel wrapped in thin paper, which explodes when thrown on a hard surface. c. A cartridge exploded in an oil-well to cause a renewal or increase of the flow. U.S. (In use 1873: see torpedoed s.v. TORPEDO v.) d. A detonator placed on a railway line, as a fog-signal, etc. U.S.
1786. trans. Beckford’s Vathek (1883), 127. I will spring mines of serpents and torpedos from beneath them, and we shall soon see the stand they will make against such an explosion.
1831. T. P. Jones, Convers. Chem., xix. 197. Those dangerous playthings called torpedoes, which explode when thrown upon the floor, derive this property from some preparation of silver.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., s.v., Torpedoes for opening the fissures of oil-wells…. 4. (Railway.) A cartridge placed on a rail to be exploded by a passing train.
1909. Westm. Gaz., 28 July, 2/1. The use or abuse of Roman candles, paper-caps, display pieces, small crackers, or … torpedoes.
4. attrib. and Comb.; in sense 1, as torpedo-fish, -ray; esp. fig. in allusion to its benumbing power, as torpedo history, narrative, quality, touch; torpedo-like adv.; in sense 2, as torpedo armament, craft, department, flat (FLAT C. 10 b), -fuse (Knight, Dict. Mech., 1877), -instructor, -launch, mariner, room, school, -vessel, -works; torpedo-launching, -shaped adjs.; also torpedo-anchor, an anchor for mooring a stationary torpedo (Knight, 1877); torpedo board, a pointed beard; torpedo-body, a motor-car body tapered at the ends; torpedo-boom, ‘a spar bearing a torpedo on its upper end, the lower end swiveled and anchored to the bottom of the channel’ (Knight, 1877); torpedo-catcher, (a) see quot. 1877; (b) a torpedo-boat catcher; torpedo-cruiser, a cruiser that serves also as a torpedo-boat; torpedo destroyer, a torpedo-boat destroyer (officially called simply ‘a destroyer’); torpedo director, an instrument by which the direction for aiming a locomotive torpedo is determined; torpedo-drag, a cable with a grapple or drag for clearing a channel of torpedoes (Knight, 1877); torpedo gun = torpedo-tube; torpedo-lieutenant, a naval officer in charge of torpedoes; torpedo man, in the British navy, a man who has passed certain courses of training in torpedo-work, to whom a non-substantive rating is granted; (U.S.), one whose business is the clearing of oil-wells by means of torpedoes (see 3 c); torpedo-net, a steel-wire netting suspended round a ship on projecting booms as a protection against torpedoes; torpedo-ram, a ram (RAM sb.1 3 c) provided with torpedo-tubes; torpedo-spar, a spar rigged to a torpedo boat, to which a torpedo is attached; torpedo-tube, a kind of gun from which torpedoes are discharged by compressed air or gunpowder. See also TORPEDO BOAT.
1896. Daily News, 4 Nov., 7/2. As to the *torpedo armament, it is instructive to quote Commander Bacon’s words.
1899. Somerville & Ross, Irish R. M., 29. A saturnine young man with a black *torpedo beard.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Torpedo-catcher, a forked spar or boom extending under water, ahead of a vessel, to displace or explode torpedoes.
1888. Encycl. Brit., XXIII. 451/2. Special vessels, called ‘torpedo catchers,’ are being built by most nations.
1885. Times, 30 April, 10/6. The four first-class *torpedo craft which have hoisted the white ensign are being fitted with Norden-felt guns.
1901. Daily Graphic, 12 July, 6. The *torpedo-cruiser Kapitan Sacken.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 8 March, 9/2. The *torpedo destroyer instructional flotilla.
1825. J. Neal, Bro. Jonathan, I. 29. Lying in wait like a *torpedo-fish.
1885. Times, 30 April, 10/6. Each boat will have five *torpedo guns or tubes.
1845. Carlyle, Cromwell (1871), I. 3. Dryasdust, who wishes merely to compile *torpedo Histories.
1878. N. Amer. Rev., CXXVII. 384. Dispatched their *torpedo-launches against their intended victim.
1895. Daily News, 29 May, 6/4. She still has … quick-firing guns, and two *torpedo-launching tubes.
1718. Entertainer, No. 12. 74. ’Tis the way to lay waste the Fences of Virtue,… and *Torpedo-like, petrify and benum us.
1839. Bailey, Festus, xix. (1852), 307. As though to touch but on that topic had, Torpedo-like, numbed thought.
1883. Century Mag., July. 330/2. The *‘torpedo man’ … travels about in a light vehicle with his tubes and his nitro-glycerine can.
1898. Spokane Chron., 30 June, 6/2. The whole town turned out to do them honor…. The brave *torpedo mariners took their time, though…. The program of entertainment, embracing originally three days, had to be extended to a week.
1885. Times, 30 April, 10/6. Although the Colossus is coaled and has been fitted with *torpedo nets, it is not expected that she can be got ready for sea in less than a month.
1828. Carlyle, Misc. (1857), I. 82. The old man has a *torpedo quality in him.
1877. Knight, Dict. Mech., *Torpedo-ram.
1900. Daily News, 4 May, 2/5. The Polyphemus, torpedo-ram, arrived at Sheerness yesterday from the Mediterranean.
1804. Shaw, Gen. Zool., V. 297. *Torpedo Ray.
1822–34. Good’s Study Med. (ed. 4), IV. 214. The torpedo-ray was well known by the Romans to possess this extraordinary power.
1889. Welch, Text Bk. Naval Archit., xii. 133. The air finally reaches the under-water *torpedo room.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 29 June, 1/3. A telephone chamber communicating with the *torpedo-school ship and also with the target. Ibid. (1903), 2 July, 7/3. The *torpedo-shaped blue Mors cars.
1792. S. Rogers, Pleas. Mem., I. 278. What tho’ the fiend’s *torpedo-touch arrest Each gentler, finer impulse of the breast.
1809–10. Coleridge, Friend, I. xvi. (1865), 220. Benumbed into selfishness by the torpedo touch of extreme want.
1898. Kipling, in Morn. News, 10 Nov., 5/1. We are blessed with a pair of deck *torpedo-tubes, which weigh about ten tons, and are the bane of our lives.
1878. N. Amer. Rev., CXXVII. 230. The *torpedo-vessel has been successfully developed.
Hence Torpedoic a. (nonce-wd.), of a torpedo, like that of a torpedo; Torpedoism (torpedism). (a) action or quality like that of a torpedo or electric ray; (b) the use of the torpedo (sense 2) in warfare; Torpedoist (torpedist), one who is employed or skilled in, or advocates, the use of torpedoes; Torpedoless a., having no torpedoes.
1893. H. W. Lucy, in Strand Mag., Feb., 201. Mr. Gladstone leaped to his feet with *torpedoic action and energy.
1905. Philadelphia Inquirer, 11 June, 32/1. There are one or two N. G. P. campaign planners, who are maneuvering things, and ready to launch their automatic automobile and torpedoic ambition booms.
1845. Carlyle, Cromwell (1871), I. 68. Dilettantisms, Dryasdust *Torpedoisms.
1872. Newcastle Weekly Courant, 16 Feb., 6/2. A practical *torpedoist—Von Scheliha by name—writes to the Army and Navy Gazette on ‘Offensive Torpedoes.’
1880. Athenæum, 21 Aug., 242/2. Readers must not expect to find … an elaborate treatise on torpedism, nor … the so-called secret of the Whitehead torpedo. Ibid., 242/1. During … 1877, the Russian *torpedists made a night attack upon the Ottoman squadron lying off Batoum.
1883. 19th Cent., May, 796. The naval officer should be a perfect navigator, a good artilleryman, torpedoist, and electrician, a steam engineer, &c.
1886. Pall Mall G., 29 Dec., 6/2. Banishes to the command of a small *torpedo-less cruiser in the Indian Ocean one of the first living authorities on torpedo science and practice in the British navy (and therefore in the world).
