Other forms: tortures
Torture is the deliberate causing of severe pain to punish or extract information. Under torture, ban torture, torture chamber.
It is prohibited absolutely in international law, with no exception for emergency, and the practical argument against it is as strong as the moral one — people under torture say whatever will stop it, so the information is worthless. Note that the Latin means a twisting, from torquere.
1nountortureThe deliberate causing of severe pain to punish or extract information.
“International law bans the use of torture, even in times of war.”
torture is a cruelty.
Latin tortura means a twisting, from torquere, to twist. Torque, contort and distort come from the same twisting.
Proto-Indo-European
*terkʷ-
Latin
tortūra — a twisting, writhing, of bodily pain, a griping colic;” in Medieval Latin “pain inflicted by judicial or ecclesiastical authority as a means of persuasion, torture
Old French
torture
Middle English
torture
English, today
torture
Built from
From Middle English torture, from Old French torture, from Latin tortūra (“a twisting, writhing, of bodily pain, a griping colic;” in Medieval Latin “pain inflicted by judicial or ecclesiastical authority as a means of persuasion, torture”), from Latin tortus (whence also tort), past participle of torquēre (“to twist”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA