torture

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. Infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion.
2. n. An instrument or a method for inflicting such pain.
3. n. Excruciating physical or mental pain; agony: the torture of waiting in suspense.
4. n. Something causing severe pain or anguish.
5. v. To subject (a person or an animal) to torture.
6. v. To bring great physical or mental pain upon (another). See Synonyms at afflict.
7. v. To twist or turn abnormally; distort: torture a rule to make it fit a case.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. The act of inflicting severe pain as a punishment, as a means of persuasion, or in revenge; specifically, the act of inflicting such pain under the orders of a court of justice, royal commission, ecclesiastical organization, or other legal or self-constituted judge or authority, especially as a supposed means of extorting the truth from an accused person or as a commutative punishment (also called specifically judicial torture); the pain so inflicted. The theory was that a guilty person could be made to confess, but an innocent person not, by this means. The infliction of torture upon alleged heretics was practised by ecclesiastical powers, especially in southern Europe, in the later middle ages and down to the eighteenth century, and its infliction upon captured enemies is a common practice among savage peoples.
2. n. In general, the act, operation, or process of inflicting excruciating pain, physical or mental.
3. n. Excruciating pain; extreme anguish of body or mind; agony; anguish; torment.
4. n. Synonyms Agony, Anguish, Pang, etc. See agony and list under pang.
5. To inflict severe pain upon; pain extremely; torment bodily or mentally.
6. To punish with torture; put to the torture.
7. To wrest from the natural position or state; especially, in a figurative sense, to distort; pervert; torment.
8. To pull out; stretch; strain.

Wiktionary

1. n. Intentional causing of somebody's experiencing agony.
2. n. The "suffering of the heart" imposed by one on another, as in personal relationships.
3. v. transitive To intentionally inflict severe pain or suffering on (someone).

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. Extreme pain; anguish of body or mind; pang; agony; torment.
2. n. Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an accused person, as by water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack or wheel.
3. n. The act or process of torturing.
4. v. To put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex.
5. v. To punish with torture; to put to the rack.
6. v. To wrest from the proper meaning; to distort.
7. v. obsolete To keep on the stretch, as a bow.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain
2. n. the deliberate, systematic, or wanton infliction of physical or mental suffering by one or more persons in an attempt to force another person to yield information or to make a confession or for any other reason
3. v. torment emotionally or mentally
4. n. unbearable physical pain
5. v. subject to torture
6. n. extreme mental distress
7. n. the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean