Torture
late Middle English (in the sense ‘distortion, twisting’, or a physical disorder characterized by this): via French from late Latin tortura ‘twisting, torment’, from Latin torquere ‘to twist’.
wiktionary
From Middle English torture, from Old French torture, from Late Latin tortūra(“a twisting, writhing, of bodily pain, a griping colic;” in Middle Latin “pain inflicted by judicial or ecclesiastical authority as a means of persuasion, torture”), from Latin tortus (whence also tort), past participle of torquere(“to twist”).
etymonline
torture (n.)
early 15c., "contortion, twisting, distortion; a disorder characterized by contortion," from Old French torture "infliction of great pain; great pain, agony" (12c.), and directly from Late Latin tortura "a twisting, writhing," in Medieval Latin "pain inflicted by judicial or ecclesiastical authority as a means of punishment or persuasion," from stem of Latin torquere "to twist, turn, wind, wring, distort" (from PIE root *terkw- "to twist").
The meaning "infliction of severe bodily pain as a means of punishment or persuasion" in English is from 1550s. The theory behind judicial torture was that a guilty person could be made to confess, but an innocent one could not, by this means. Macaulay writes that it was last inflicted in England in May 1640.
torture (v.)
1580s, from torture (n.). Related: Tortured; torturing.
