Link Centre Dictionary

tort

UK/tɔːt/ US/tɔɹt/ rare obsolete slang uk

noun

1.

(law) any wrongdoing for which an action for damages may be brought

Synonyms

Origin

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”)

Phrases

  • de son tort
  • tort law
  • toxic tort

Related words

Broader terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.