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torturous

[tawr-cher-uhs]

adjective

pertaining to, involving, or causing torture or suffering.

Origin:
1490–1500; < Anglo-French; Old French tortureus. See torture, -ous

Related forms

tor·tur·ous·ly, adverb

Can be confused: tortious, tortuous, torturous (see usage note at the current entry).

Usage note
Torturous refers specifically to what involves or causes pain or suffering: prisoners working in the torturous heat; torturous memories of past injustice. Some speakers and writers use torturous for tortuous, especially in the senses “twisting, winding” and “convoluted”: a torturous road; torturous descriptions. Others, however, keep the two adjectives (and their corresponding adverbs) separate in all senses: a tortuous (twisting) road; tortuous (convoluted) descriptions; torturous (painful) treatments.

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Torturous is always a great word to know.

So is quincunx. Does it mean:

an arrangement of five objects, as trees, in a square or rectangle, one at each corner and one in the middle.

the offspring of a zebra and a donkey.

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Collins

World English Dictionary

torture (ˈtɔːtʃə)

—vb
1.	to cause extreme physical pain to, esp in order to extract information, break resistance, etc: to torture prisoners
2.	to give mental anguish to
3.	to twist into a grotesque form

—n
4.	physical or mental anguish
5.	the practice of torturing a person
6.	a cause of mental agony or worry

[C16: from Late Latin tortūra a twisting, from torquēre to twist]

usage 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 tortuous road, i.e. one that winds or twists

'tortured

—*adj*

'torturedly

—*adv*

'torturer

—n

'torturesome

—*adj*

'torturous

—*adj*

'torturing

—*adj*

'torturingly

—*adv*

'torturously

—*adv*

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
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Matching Quote

"Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind."

-Thomas Paine

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