Also 6–7 tortour, tortor. [a. F. torture (12th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. L. tortūra twisting, wreathing; torment, torture; f. torquēre, tort- to twist, torment.]
1. The infliction of excruciating pain, as practised by cruel tyrants, savages, brigands, etc., from a delight in watching the agony of a victim, in hatred or revenge, or as a means of extortion; spec. judicial torture, inflicted by a judicial or quasi-judicial authority, for the purpose of forcing an accused or suspected person to confess, or an unwilling witness to give evidence or information; a form of this (often in pl.). To put to (the) torture, to inflict torture upon, to torture.
1551. Acts Privy Counc. (1891), III. 407. Assisting to the sayd Commissioners for the putting the prisoners … to suche tortours as they shall think expedient.
1593. Shaks., 2 Hen. VI., III. i. 131. You did deuise Strange Tortures for Offendors.
1608. D. Price, Chr. Warre, 21. To punish the bad, and to prouide some sharpe and fearful tortors for them.
1653. H. Cogan, trans. Pinto’s Trav., iv. 10. We put the Captain and Pilot to torture, who instantly confessed.
1708. Act 7 Anne, c. 21 § 5. After [1 July 1709] no Person accused of any Capital Offence or other Crime in Scotland, shall suffer, or be subject or liable to any Torture.
1769. Blackstone, Comm. (1830), IV. xxv. 326. They erected a rack for torture.
1838. Thirlwall, Greece, III. xxv. 393. Pisander moved that the persons … should be put to the torture, that all their accomplices might be known.
1849. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., i. (1871), I. 16. According to law, torture … could not … be inflicted on an English subject.
1882. Gardiner, Hist. Eng. (1884), VI. lxv. 359, note 2. Torture had been allowed [in England] by custom as inflicted by the prerogative, but not by law…. Torture was inflicted as late as 1640 by prerogative.
† b. transf. An instrument or means of torture.
1601. Shaks., All’s Well, IV. iii. 135. He calles for the tortures, what will you say without em?
1621. G. Sandys, Ovid’s Met., IX. (1626), 178. To teare the torture [letiferam vestem] off, he striues.
1721–2. R. Wodrow, Suffer. Ch. Scot., II. xiii. § 5 (1837), II. 458/2. His leg being in the torture [i.e., the boot].
2. Severe or excruciating pain or suffering (of body or mind); anguish, agony, torment; the infliction of such.
c. 1540. trans. Pol. Verg. Eng. Hist. (Camden), I. 269. Doe you preferre the horrible tortures of warre beefore tranquillitee?
1593. Shaks., Lucr., 1287. And that deepe torture may be cal’d a Hell, When more is felt than one hath power to tell.
1612. Woodall, Surg. Mate, Wks. (1653), 185. Pain and torture of the intestines.
1659. H. More, Immort. Soul, II. x. § 6. 220. Who would bear the tortures of Fears and Jealousies, if he could avoid it?
1734. Bp. Petre, Lett., in E. H. Burton, Life Challoner (1909), I. 93. He wasted away by degrees under the torture of the Strangury.
1744. M. Bishop, Life & Adv., 52. They were in such great Torture, wishing they had never come to Sea.
1797. Mrs. Radcliffe, Italian, ii. He determined to relieve himself from the tortures of suspense.
1878. Browning, La Saisiaz, 353. As in one or other stage Of a torture writhe they.
b. transf. A cause of severe pain or anguish. (In quot. 1859 humorous.)
1612. Brinsley, Lud. Lit., viii. (1627), 106. The labour of learning … Authours without booke … is one of the greatest tortures to the poore schollers.
1859. Habits Gd. Society, xi. 300. Never was a more solemn torture created for mankind than these odious dinner-parties.
1873. Hamerton, Intell. Life, II. i. (1875), 52. An ugly picture was torture to his cultivated eye.
1908. R. Bagot, A. Cuthbert, xxvii. Do not make me put it into words, it is torture!
3. transf. and fig. with various allusions: Severe pressure; violent perversion or ‘wresting’; violent action or operation; severe testing or examination.
1605. Bacon, Adv. Learn., II. xvii. § 9. All the kernell [is] forced out and expulsed with the torture and presse of the Methode.
c. 1670. Hobbes, Dial. Com. Laws (1681), 147. This Statute cannot by Sir Edw. Cokes Torture be made to say it.
1691. Ray, Creation, I. (1692), 87. All the Tortures of Vulcan or corrosive Waters.
1818. Byron, Ch. Har., IV. lxix. The hell of waters! where they howl and hiss, And boil in endless torture.
1855. Brewster, Newton, I. iv. 91. Experimental results, that may put his own views to the torture.
1887. Spectator, No. 3067. 491/2. Much so-called wit of the present day is nothing more than the systematic torture of words.
4. attrib. and Comb., as torture-chamber, -house, -monger, -rack, -room, -wheel; torture-scored adj.
1615. J. Stephens, Ess. & Char. (1857), 133. An Impudent Censurer—Is the torture-monger of Wit, ready for execution before Judgement.
1829. Scott, Anne of G., x. Building castles with dungeons and folter-kammers, or torture-chambers.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. I. ii. Torture-wheels and conical oubliettes.
a. 1847. Eliza Cook, Silence, 2. Poverty has a sharp and goading power To wring the torture cry.
1898. S. Coleridge, Step by Step, 4. The guardian of the secret of the torture-house.
1899. Westm. Gaz., 9 Feb., 2/1. The torture-instinct (common alone to human and feline).
