torch

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Definitions (24)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (6)

  1. noun A portable light produced by the flame of a stick of resinous wood or of a flammable material wound about the end of a stick of wood; a flambeau.
  2. noun Chiefly British A flashlight.
  3. noun Something that serves to illuminate, enlighten, or guide.
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Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (12)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (1)

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Examples

  • Quick as the train to which a torch is applied, the passions caught its flame and nothing seemed to be required but the assemblage proposed for the succeeding day to communicate the conflagration to the combustible mass and to produce an explosion ruinous to the army and to the nation. —  Life and Times of Washington
  • Here the cotton had been piled in a narrow street, and when the torch was applied by similar Confederate orders, the rising wind easily floated the blazing flakes to the near roofs of buildings. —  A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln
  • There's no question in my mind that this torch is always being passed, sometimes in ways that we aren't even aware of at the time. —  Stand And Be Counted
  • We must leave for Proton immediately with Citizen Purple. —  Phaze Doubt
  • Whoever held the torch was as nervous as a kitten, because whoever held the torch had more than a vague idea where the sound had come from and a steady careful sweep would have picked me up in three seconds. —  Fear is the Key
 

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Torch has been looked up 219 times, favorited 0 times, listed 21 times, and commented on 5 times.

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Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

lantern ·  lamp ·  flashlight ·  flare ·  flame ·  knife ·  lance ·  blaze ·  spark ·  gun ·  arrow ·  beam
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English torche, from Old French, from Vulgar Latin *torca, alteration of Latin torqua, variant of torquēs, torque, from Latin torquēre, to twist; see terkw- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English torche, from Old French (and F.) torche =Provencal torcha =Italian torcia (cf. Spanish antorcha, a torch), from Middle Latin tortia, a torch, so called as made of a twisted roll of tow or other material, from Latin tortus, past participle of torquere, twist: see tort. Cf. torce, torse
  2. from torch, n.
  3. from French torcher. wipe, beat (cf. torchis, mortar of loam and straw), from torche, literally a twist: see torch.
 

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/tɔrtʃ/
by American Heritage

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