a. Also 7 erron. torred. [ad. L. torrid-us, f. torrēre to dry with heat: see -ID. Cf. F. torride (Rabelais, 1546), Sp., Pg. tórrido, -a, It. torrido, -a.]
1. Scorched, burned, exposed to great heat; also, intensely hot, burning, scorching.
1611. Cotgr., Torride, torride, scorched, burned, parched; also,… dried by the extremitie of heat.
1613. Purchas, Pilgrimage, VIII. i. 603. A torrid and scorched earth.
1658. J. Robinson, Eudoxa, ix. 48. Exotick simples … corrupted by the long and torrid space of the Voyage.
1667. Milton, P. L., XII. 634. Fierce as a Comet; which with torrid heat … Began to parch that temperate Clime.
1798. Canning, in Anti-Jacobin, No. 27. 146. All in the town of Tunis, In Africa the torrid.
1809. Byron, Ch. Har., I. xxviii., note. Such torrid weather.
1876. Merivale, Rom. Triumvirates, vii. (1877), 246. The march through this torrid and trackless region occupied seven days.
b. esp. in torrid zone, the region of the earth between the tropics. (Orig. in L. form, torrida zona or zona torrida; cf. Virg., Georg., I. 234.).
[1398. Trevisa, Barth. De P. R., XI. iii. (Bodl. MS.). Þe cercle þat hatte Torrida zona [L. orig. a. 1350] vnder þe whiche þe sonne meueþ alwei.
1553. Eden, Treat. Newe Ind. (Arb.), 33. The burning lyne called Zona Torrida.]
1586. Marlowe, 1st Pt. Tamburl., IV. iv. Thence by land unto the torrid zone.
1794. Sullivan, View Nat., I. 156. Why, under the torid zone, have the little islands a temperature always supportable…?
1834. Mrs. Somerville, Connex. Phys. Sc., xxvii. 272. In the valleys of the torrid zone, where the mean annual temperature is very high.
c. transf. Inhabiting the torrid zone.
1771. Pennant, Syn. Quadr., 297. Torrid jerboa.
† d. Of color: Burned, blackened with burning.
1634. Sir T. Herbert, Trav., 24. Their colour is (answerable to the Zone they breathe in) blacke and Torrid.
1650. Charleton, Paradoxes, 18. It grows not black and torrid … by the affriction of the Saphire.
2. fig. a. In reference to the ‘heat’ of persecution, or sometimes to the burning of heretics.
a. 1635. Corbet, Poems (1807), 48. Had shee bin then In Maryes torrid dayes engend’red, when Cruelty was witty.
1702. C. Mather, Magn. Chr., III. I. iii. (1852), 316. The countries which the bloody Popish inquisition has made a clime too torrid for a Protestant.
b. Hot in temper or passion; ardent, zealous, enthusiastic.
1645. Crashaw, Steps to Temple, 84. Temper’d ’twixt cold despair and torrid joy.
1685. in Maidment, Bk. Scott. Pasquils (1868), 287. But I was ne’er in love so torrid As to miscarry with my mate.
1889. Buffalo Morning Express, 20 July, 8/1. The General saw the ante, and raised it with a torrid romance that sizzed when it struck the ground.
1909. Nation, 16 Oct., 129/2. Mr. Finck is about as torrid a hot gospeller as one could meet with.
Hence Torridly adv.; Torridness.
1657. R. Ligon, Barbadoes (1673), 9. Finding the Air so *torridly hot, I thought good to make tryal of the water.
1638. Sir T. Herbert, Trav. (ed. 2), 36. The [ayre] inflamed by the *torridnesse of the Zone.
a. 1656. Ussher, Ann., vi. (1658), 271. Their horses being all spent … with the length and torridnesse of the way.
