[f. TORTURE v. + -ING1.] The action of the verb TORTURE; infliction of torture; tormenting; fig. wresting, perversion.
1633. P. Fletcher, Purple Isl., XII. lxv. He soon was led Unto a thousand thousand torturings.
1638. Drumm. of Hawth., Irene, Wks. (1711), 170. Ruines of noble houses,… confiscation of estates, torturing of bodies.
1753. W. Stewart, in Scots Mag., March, 135/2. What strange … torturing of … upright actions must there be, to make this criminal?
1765. Blackstone, Comm. (1830), I. i. 133. Prohibition not only of killing and maiming, but also of torturing (to which our laws are strangers).
1855. Maurice, Patriarchs & Lawg., xii. (1882), 223. These are not inferences drawn from the story by an unnatural torturing.
b. attrib. Torturing-stock (nonce-wd.), one apon whom torture is inflicted.
1622. Bp. Hall, Serm. bef. Jas. I., 15 Sept., Wks. (1624), 493. Yet … were these poor torturing-stocks higher … than their persecutors.
