Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Law Damage, injury, or a wrongful act done willfully, negligently, or in circumstances involving strict liability, but not involving breach of contract, for which a civil suit can be brought.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. Wrong; injustice; harm.
- n. In law, a wrong such as the law requires compensation for in damages; an infringement or privation of the private or civil rights of a person considered as a private person or an owner. The same act considered in its relation to the state may be a crime.
- n. A cake. Compare tart and torta.
- n. A twisting, wrenching, or racking; a griping.
- n. A candle; a light.
- Tart; sharp.
- An erroneous form of taut, simulating tort.
- A Middle English form of toward.
Wiktionary
- adj. Tart, sharp.
- n. this sense?) (plural, torts) The area of law dealing with such wrongful acts.
- adj. obsolete Stretched tight; taut.
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. obsolete Mischief; injury; calamity.
- n. (Law) Any civil wrong or injury; a wrongful act (not involving a breach of contract) for which an action will lie; a form of action, in some parts of the United States, for a wrong or injury.
- adj. rare Stretched tight; taut.
WordNet 3.0
- n. (law) any wrongdoing for which an action for damages may be brought
Etymologies
- From Old French tort. (Wiktionary)
- Middle English, injury, from Old French, from Medieval Latin tortum, from Latin, neuter past participle of torquēre, to twist; see terkw- in Indo-European roots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“First-time filmmaker Susan Saladoff starts where for many Americans, the term "tort reform" first appeared.”
The Guardian: How corporations award themselves legal immunity | Laura Flanders
“It also includes a good point about the term tort reform-”
“Some like the term tort deform, which suggests tort deformers, but those terms seem too flip for serious discourse.”
“Try to avoid the word tort by referring to a case more specifically as a negligence or personal-injury lawsuit.”
Simon & Schuster: Essential Guide to Business Style and Usage
“BLITZER: All right, let's talk about what they call tort reform.”
“Republican: Take out everything and put in tort reform and interstate competition.”
“Ordinarily attorney's fees are not available in tort claims.”
“Again, there is a well settled test in tort that allows us to discern whether your control over that farming is sufficient to render you liable.”
“The incident was notorious internationally and prompted Congress to draft a resolution asking the states to allow suits in tort for the violation of the law of nations.”
The Volokh Conspiracy » Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act v Alien Tort Statute?
“The premise behind the constitutionality of a properly limited libel tort is that libel law covers only speech that lacks “constitutional value” — false statements of fact:”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘tort’.
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EN - fine scholarly language
exhort, accretion, twenty-nine, atrophy, additive, brilliantly, interreligious, empiricism, pathologic, limitless, half-century, vigilant and 488 more...
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New words
new words or spelling issues
voluble, Metagrobolize, salubrious, calumny, fugacity, withdrawal, bourse, hypertrophy, leitmotif, argot, improvident, damask and 246 more...
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emordnilap
reviled, loot, no, ta, rat, part, pit, stop, spat, ten, mad, mart and 108 more...
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Not edible
Things that sound edible but are not (usually). See Liberty's To Eat, or Not to Eat? for more diet food.
cinnabar, dulcimer, belfries, potto, maltha, grapple, loam, rake, tort, pomade, buffalo chip, wedgie and 172 more...
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JURI - courtroom speak
Legal glossary with special focus on courtroom vocabulary
accused, acquittal, ADA, adjournment, adjudication, affidavit, affirmed, aggravated range, aggravating factors, allegation, alleged, answer and 794 more...
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Law
common law, defense, plea, defendant, plaintiff, argument, law, grant, subpoena, tarnish, estoppel, replevin and 5 more...
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Surprising four-letter words
I imagine most of these will be Anglo-Saxon, not likely to crop up in the average day's conversation, and thus excellent for Scrabble. ("most" is too common, likewise "will" and even "crop", in an...
blet, quim, clit, buff, sire, wiki, blog, loam, waft, heft, mare, lilt and 68 more...
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pagecrusher's Words
fugu, ilk, rigamarole, superfluous, dearth, sacrosanct, moniker, bifurcate, villainous, onus, brazen, odin and 268 more...
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words unknown
repeat!!!
laissez faire, propensity, punitive, explicit, whim, extenuating, distort, gross, grossly, hearsay, dispel, apprehensive and 113 more...
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quality words
This is a mix of new words I've read studying for the GRE verbal and words I use normally. I also check back on these words if I don't use them often enough.
ineffable, septuagenarian, sesquipedalian, argyle, coalescence, profundity, vivisepulture, defenestrate, concatenate, usurp, diatribe, veracious and 461 more...
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to acquire
moustache, thoughtcrime, lift, overall, razor, strength, oily, gin, oily gin, brotherhood, dull, toward and 108 more...
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NTDW1
template, modal, sublingual, tandem, polycentric, septuagenarian, token, irrevocable, denotive, augural, aberrant, phlebotomy and 1188 more...
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Words. Just words.
Our chief weapons are words, that's all. Just words. Only words, not justly words, that is.
That is to say that there are only words in this list, not words that are just, although s...profligacy, monty, the arc of history, luddite, peremptory, brusque, languid, callipygian, perniciously, insidiousness, camelot, perforce and 189 more...
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DYSLEXIC'S DREAD
Words That Make Sense in Reverse Too! Bad news for a dyslexic, 'cause s/he's got no clue if s/he read the word correctly or not, as opposed to a palindrome (i.e., no mistake possible, cf. "Dyslexic...
tool, lever, nap, pool, leer, leek, desserts, strop, doom, ukiah, yaws, ward and 213 more...
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I am the law!
Words I learnt at law school
appeal, blackletter, contract, dictum, headnote, judgment, litigation, malfeasance, negligence, plaintiff, quantum, remedy and 216 more...
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hober's Words
anglosphere, wiki, slither, cylon, satchel, faustian, ragamuffin, frak, salient, fervid, tartan, snowclone and 299 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for tort.
Ido Berger http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eggshell_skull Jul 1, 2010
oroboros Trot in reverse. Jul 22, 2007