a. Also 6 torquet. [after obs. F. torqué, pa. pple. of torquer, ad. L. torquēre to twist: see -ED1.]
1. Twisted, convoluted; formed like a torque.
1577. D. Settle, M. Frobisher’s Voy., II., in Hakluyt, Voy. (1589), 625. We found a dead fishe … which had in his nose a horne streight and torquet, of length two yardes lacking two ynches.
1857. Archæologia, XXXVII. 102. A pair of ear-rings of base silver, the large torqued circles of which were closed by a sort of hook and eye.
2. Her. Twisted or bent into a double curve like the letter S: said of a serpent or dolphin used as a bearing. (In quot. 1572 app. Bent into a coiled form.)
1572. Bossewell, Armorie, II. 63 b. The fielde is of the Saphyre, a Serpente torqued, Topace.
1688. R. Holme, Armoury, III. xvi. (Roxb.), 119/1. A Fasce, or fiue arrowes in fasce, with a serpent Torqued about the same.
c. 1828. [see TORGANT].
1894. Parker’s Gloss. Her., Torqued, bowed-embowed, especially of a serpent’s tail; also wreathed.
