torch
/tɔːtʃ
/- It looked impressive, but the light from the battery-operated torch bulb-lit lanterns could have been brighter to enable them to stand out better in the darkness.
- Kingston shoppers took heed of advice given on the Home Office website last week to stockpile battery-powered torches, radios, food and bottled water.
Synonyms
- We took off our sandals, and two of the bissu carried burning torches to light our way.
- He also choreographed the dance piece for the ceremony of lighting the torch at the courthouse steps and later in Dublin at the Point Depot.
Synonyms
- She not only carried the torch of educating young women, but she passed it on.
- Others view Poland as the suffering Christ among nations raising the torch of liberty and independence for themselves and others.
- He is married with four children, one of whom, Zoe, has picked up the educational torch and is now a teacher in Chiseldon.
- Armed with pitch forks, torches, and stakes; the men planned to overwhelm the vampire until he was struck down.
- Stonefist had armed himself with throwing axes, his battleaxe, a torch, and a tower shield.
- I teach the same groups how to light fires - kids who may have torched vehicles often don't know how to keep a real fire going.
- The car behind the fire station used for training purposes was torched around 1pm.
- Small numbers of music fans set fire to tents, but organisers insisted people had only torched their own belongings.
Synonyms
Phrases
carry a torch for
put to the torch (or put a torch to)
Origin
Middle English: from Old French torche, from Latin torqua, variant of torques 'necklace, wreath', from torquere 'to twist'. The current verb sense was originally US slang and dates from the 1930s.
A torch in the original sense of ‘something soaked in an inflammable substance used to give light’ was often made of twisted hemp or other fibres. This is still the American meaning, and reflects the word's Latin origin, torquere ‘to twist’. Only in British English can torch describe a battery-powered electric lamp, which Americans call a flashlight. A torch song is a sad or sentimental song of unrequited love, whose name, used since the 1920s, comes from the phrase carry a torch for, ‘to love someone who does not love you in return’. The image in pass on the torch, ‘to pass on a tradition, especially one of learning or enlightenment’, is that of the runners in a relay race passing on the torch to each other, as was the custom in the ancient Greek Olympic Games. The Latin source of torch, torquere, is found in a large number of other English words. Most obviously it is the source of the engineer's torque (late 19th century), and the twisted Celtic neck-ring the torc (mid 19th century). Less obviously it is in contort (Late Middle English) ‘twist together’; distort (Late Middle English) ‘twist out of shape’; extort (early 16th century) ‘twist out of’; and retort (Late Middle English) ‘to twist back’ (the chemical apparatus gets its name from its twisted shape). Tortura ‘twisting, torment’ the Latin noun formed from the verb gives us torture and tortuous (both LME), and torment (Middle English). Thwart (Middle English) is an Old Norse word that goes back to the same Indo-European root.