• 1. to cause extreme physical pain to, esp in order to extract information, break resistance, etc
• 2. to give mental anguish to
• 3. to twist into a grotesque form
• 4. physical or mental anguish
• 5. the practice of torturing a person
• 6. a cause of mental agony or worry
• 7. C16: from Late Latin tort u ra a twisting, from torqu e re to twist
• 8. The adjective torturous is sometimes confused with tortuous. One speaks of a torturous experience, i.e. one that involves pain or suffering, but of a ...

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