Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • To throw; cast.
  • Grim; wild; fierce; stern; of a stern countenance.

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

  • verb obsolete To throw, cast.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English torven, torvien, from Old English torfian ("to throw, cast missiles, shoot, stone"), from Proto-Germanic *turbōjanan, *turbianan (“to turn, twist”), from Proto-Indo-European *derbh- (“to tie together, weave”). Related to Old English tearflian ("to turn, roll, wallow"), Alemannic German zirbeln ("to swirl, whirl, roll"). See terfle.

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Examples

  • Instantly Toby made at him with a roar too, and an eye more torve than

    Adventures Among Books Andrew Lang 1878

  • A lover of his native tongue will tremble to think what that tongue would have become, if all the vocables from the Latin and the Greek which were then introduced or endorsed by illustrious names, had been admitted on the strength of their recommendation; if ‘torve’ and ‘tetric’ (Fuller),

    English Past and Present Richard Chenevix Trench 1846

  • (_Worthies: Lincolnshire_) has it, "overlooked this church, when first finished, with a torve and tetrick countenance, as maligning men's costly devotions."

    The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 6 George Gordon Byron Byron 1806

  • Instantly Toby made straight at him with a roar too, and an eye more torve than Scrymgeour’s, who, retreating without reserve, fell prostrate, there is reason to believe, in his own lobby.

    Spare Hours John Brown 1846

Comments

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  • Latin torvus = 1. staring, keen, piercing; 2. wild, stern, fierce, grim, savage.

    July 19, 2013

  • In Latin he'll punish, by Jove,

    Those schoolboys whose silly minds rove.

    Hell get their attention

    With endless declension

    And looks that are classically torve.

    May 6, 2017