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torrid

UK/ˈtɒɹɪd/US/ˈtɔɹɪd/
adjectiveC1Occasional — familiar, but not everyday · #10,359 of 15,258neutral

Torrid means very hot and dry, or intensely passionate. A torrid summer, a torrid affair, a torrid time.

The climate sense is technical: the torrid zone is the belt between the tropics. The passionate sense is journalistic. In British sport, a torrid time means a thoroughly bad one, which is a third sense and unrelated to either heat or passion.

Definitions of torrid

  1. 1adjectivetorridVery hot and dry, or intensely passionate.C1

    “The novel tells of a torrid love affair between a painter and his model.”

torrid is a quality.

Where it comes from

Latin torridus comes from torrere, to parch or scorch. Toast and torrent are relatives.

  1. Proto-Indo-European

    *ters-

  2. Latin

    torridus

  3. English, today

    torrid

Built from

  • torreō · Latin — parch, scorch

From Latin torridus. From Latin torridus, from torreō (“parch, scorch”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

torrid in the wild

  • The tropics are also referred to as the tropical zone and the torrid zone (see geographical zone).

    Tropics

  • A crowd of almost 10,000 watched as these two emerging nations battled it out in a torrid affair.

    Mediterranean Cup

  • A torrid spring training led to his only full year in MLB, as a member of the 1977 Giants.

    Randy Elliott

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.