TORMENT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Torment

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/tˈɔrmˌɛnt/ /tɔrmˈɛnt/ Listen

noun

Torment n.

1.

(Mil. Antiq.) An engine for casting stones. (Obs.)

2.

Extreme pain; anguish; torture; the utmost degree of misery, either of body or mind. "The more I see Pleasures about me, so much more I feel Torment within me."

3.

That which gives pain, vexation, or misery. "They brought unto him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments."

verb

Torment v. t. (past & past part. tormented; pres. part. tormenting)

1.

To put to extreme pain or anguish; to inflict excruciating misery upon, either of body or mind; to torture. " Art thou come hither to torment us before our time? "

2.

To pain; to distress; to afflict. "Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented."

3.

To tease; to vex; to harass; as, to be tormented with importunities, or with petty annoyances. (Colloq.)

4.

To put into great agitation. (R.) "(They), soaring on main wing, tormented all the air."

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Etymology of 'Torment'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Torment" Quotes from Famous Books

... declared that women were always ready to drop any man for higher game; and he attributed his own ill-luck to the Senator's appearance. The fellow was in fact crazy about her beauty and ready to beat his brains out in chagrin. Perhaps Laura enjoyed his torment, but she soothed him with blandishments that increased his ardor, and she smiled to herself to think that he had, with all his protestations of love, never spoken of marriage. Probably the vivacious ...

— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... crossed the river. How peaceful and happy she looked in her last sleep—the sweet, deep sleep that knows no awaking! An innocent smile seemed to linger on her face. Never more would Hatty mourn over her faults and shortcomings; never more would morbid fears torment and harass her weary mind; never more would she plead for forgiveness, nor falter underneath her life's burden, for, as Maguire says, "To those doubting ones earth was a night season of gloom and darkness, and in the borderland they saw the dawn of day; and when the summons ...

— Our Bessie • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... there arriued in Tercera two great shippes, which were the Admirall and Viceadmirall of the Fleete laden with siluer, who with stormie weather were separated from the Fleete, and had beene in great torment and distresse, and readie to sinke: for they were forced to vse all their Pumps: so that they wished a thousand times to haue met with the Englishmen to whom they would willingly haue giuen their siluer and all that euer ...

— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation, v. 7 - England's Naval Exploits Against Spain • Richard Hakluyt

... position, of intellectual quickness, of unusual sensitiveness of spirit; yet she has thought out this woeful question differently from the great majority of her sex. To her, thirsty for sympathy and love, bound to a man who gives her neither, grown feverish and delirious with the torment of an empty heart, it has seemed that the sanctity of a second marriage will somehow cover the violation of ...

— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.

... we are fighting in Korea are right and just. They are the foundations of collective security and of the future of free nations. Korea is not only a country undergoing the torment of aggression; it is also a symbol. It stands for right and justice in the world against oppression and slavery. The free world must always stand for these principles—and we will stand with ...

— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

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