Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A turbulent, swift-flowing stream.
  • noun A heavy downpour; a deluge.
  • noun A heavy, uncontrolled flow.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Rushing in a stream.
  • noun A rushing stream, as of water or lava; a stream flowing rapidly and with violence, as down the side of a hill or over a precipice.
  • noun Figuratively, a violent or overwhelming flow; a flood: as, a torrent of abusive words.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A violent stream, as of water, lava, or the like; a stream suddenly raised and running rapidly, as down a precipice.
  • noun Fig.: A violent or rapid flow; a strong current; a flood.
  • adjective Rolling or rushing in a rapid stream.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A large amount of something, especially water or rain; a heavy stream or flow.
  • adjective Rolling or rushing in a rapid stream.
  • noun Internet A set of files obtainable through a peer-to-peer network, especially BitTorrent.
  • verb Internet slang, transitive To download in a torrent.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an overwhelming number or amount
  • noun a heavy rain
  • noun a violently fast stream of water (or other liquid)

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Latin torrēns, torrent-, from present participle of torrēre, to burn; see ters- in Indo-European roots.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From French torrent

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From BitTorrent and the file extension it uses for metadata (.torrent).

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