torturing

comparative more torturing · superlative most torturing

1. figurativelyExtremely painful, distressing, or difficult to endure.

plural torturings

1. countableuncountableAn act of torture.

   ... sae little about the elect that are tried wi' hornings, chasings, catchings, imprisonments, torturings, banishments, headings, hangings, dismemberings, and quarterings quick...

   1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume II (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, page 200

   2 more examples

   Terrible shall the vengeance of the Tisroc be: even now. But kill me, and the burnings and torturings in these northern lands shall become a tale to frighten the world a thousand years hence.

   1954, C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

   No, I'm too busy seething over another irony: whenever I've complained about my country's torturings, renderings, detentions, etc, there's always been some smug bastard ready to respond that these measures are what guarantee smart-alecky writers like myself our freedom of speech.

   2009, Barbara Ehrenreich, “My unwitting role in acts of torture”, in The Guardian

1. gerundparticiplepresentpresent participle and gerund of torture