Defn: Oblique; — applied to the six signs of the zodiac (from
Capricorn to Gemini) which ascend most rapidly and obliquely. [Obs.]
Skeat.
Infortunate ascendent tortuous. Chaucer.
—Tor"tu*ous*ly, adv.
— Tor"tu*ous*ness, n.
TORTURABLE
Tor"tur*a*ble, a.
Defn: Capable of being tortured.
TORTURE Tor"ture, n. Etym: [F.,fr.L. tortura, fr. torquere, tortum, to twist, rack, torture; probably akin to Gr. tre`pein to turn, G. drechsein to turn on a lathe, and perhaps to E. queer. Cf. Contort, Distort, Extort, Retort, Tart, n., Torch, Torment, Tortion, Tort, Trope.]
1. Extreme pain; anguish of body or mind; pang; agony; torment; as, torture of mind. Shak. Ghastly spasm or racking torture. Milton.
2. Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an accused person, as by water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack or wheel.
3. The act or process of torturing. Torture, whitch had always been deciared illegal, and which had recently been declared illegal even by the servile judges of that age, was inflicted for the last time in England in the month of May, 1640. Macaulay.
TORTURE
Tor"ture, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Tortured (; p. pr. & vb. n. Torturing.]
Etym: [Cf. F. Torturer. ]
1. To put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex.
2. To punish with torture; to put to the rack; as, to torture an accused person. Shak.