tort.
A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages.
Meaning & usage
A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages.
An injury or wrong.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English tort (“(uncountable) wrong; (countable) an injury, a wrong”), from Old French tort (“misdeed, wrong”) (modern French tort (“an error, wrong; a fault”)), from Medieval Latin tortum (“injustice, wrong”), a noun use of a neuter singular participle form of Latin tortus (“crooked; twisted”), the perfect passive participle of torqueō (“to bend or twist awry, distort”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to spin; to turn”). Cognates * Galician torto (“(adjective) bent; crooked; twisted; (noun, archaic) harm, offence; injustice, wrong, tort”) * Italian torto (“(adjective) bent; crooked; twisted; (noun, archaic) injustice, wrong”) * Norwegian Bokmål tort (dated, now only in fixed expressions) * Norwegian Nynorsk tort (dated, now only in fixed expressions) * Occitan tort * Old French tort (modern French tort) * Portuguese torto (“(adjective) bent; crooked; twisted; (noun, archaic) harm, offence; injustice, wrong”) * Spanish tuerto (“injury, offence”)
Twisted.
Where this word comes from
From Middle English tort, torte (“contorted, crooked; twisted”), from Old French tort, torte (“crooked; twisted”), or from its etymon Latin tortus (“crooked; twisted”): see further at etymology 1.
Synonym of tart (“sharp- or sour-tasting; (figuratively) keen, severe, sharp”)
Where this word comes from
A variant of tart.
Synonym of taut (“stretched tight; under tension”).
Of a boat: watertight.
Where this word comes from
A variant of taut.
Clipping of tortoise.
Where this word comes from
Clipping of tortoise.
Clipping of tortoiseshell (“a domestic cat, guinea pig, rabbit, or other animal whose fur has black, brown, and yellow markings; a tortie”).
Where this word comes from
Clipping of tortoiseshell.
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.