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# torture

«torture» in Mova's school dictionary: **Causing great pain to someone on purpose, to punish them…** — its meaning for a pupil, its sense in the lessons and examples, with 1 sentence of Mova's corpora that use it.

### part of speech

noun (torture — uncountable; a torture); verb (torture, tortures, tortured, torturing)

### meaning for a pupil

1) Causing great pain to someone on purpose, to punish them or make them say something. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#m1)

2) (verb) To hurt someone in this way. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#m2)

3) (informal, joking) Something very unpleasant or boring: this traffic is torture. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#m3)

### sense in the lessons

In history lessons torture was used in the past and is now against international law. In everyday talk children use it as a joke: waiting for the holidays is torture. Phrases: sheer torture, torture chamber.

### examples

- Torture is against the law in almost every country. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x1)
- The castle had an old torture chamber. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x2)
- Waiting in the queue was torture. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x3)
- Stop torturing your sister with that silly song! [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x4)
- Long car journeys are torture for my little brother. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x5)
- He was tortured by doubts about his choice. [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x6)
- "Perhaps they'll take to torturing me too!" [tree →](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/#x7)

### note

The joking sense is common but the real sense is very serious. Adjective torturous (painful), not to be confused with tortuous (twisty, full of bends).

### In the corpora

- ["Enhanced interrogation" means torture (US).](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/euphemisms/25-spin-war-and-violence/20/)

### Trees and pragmatics

[Every meaning and example of «torture» parsed by Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/T/torture/), each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.