tourment

Forms

tourment m (plural tourments)^[1] Old French torment, turment; the form tourment appears at the end of the 12th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle French tourment, inherited from Old French torment, inherited from Latin tormentum (“war engine, instrument of torture, torture”).^[5][6][1] The Latin noun is formed from torqueō (“to twist, to torture”), and first named concrete things: a war engine worked by twisted cords, a windlass, a rope, and the instrument of torture, from which the sense “suffering” came.^[2][3] It is related to tordre and torture.^[2][1]

Cognate with Italian tormento, Spanish tormento, Portuguese tormento and Old Occitan torment.^[7][8] Littré also gives the Walloon form tourmain and Picard torment.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Vie de saint Léger (second half of the 10th century), where it means torture, a torment inflicted on someone: a grand torment occist “killed with great torture”.^[5][2]

Semantic evolution

In Old French the word kept the meaning “torture” and could name, as in Latin, the instrument of torture (about 1130) and, as a Latinism, a war engine (before 1274).^[2][5] It also meant a storm at sea in the Chanson de Roland (about 1100) and “ruin, destruction” (1265); these senses had died out before the end of the 16th century.^[2][5] The storm sense lives on in the derivative tourmente.^[9]

The moral sense, great mental suffering, appears about 1150 in Thomas's Tristan, especially the pain of love (about 1200), and the word came to name a person or thing that causes such worry (1150–1160).^[5][2] These senses are still in use, whereas the use for bodily pain or illness (1541) has gone.^[2] The sense “torture” lasted into the early 17th century and is now archaic or literary.^[2][10]

English torment was taken from Old French torment about 1300.^[11]

Timeline

• late 10th century – Torment “torture” in the Vie de saint Léger.^[5][2]
• c. 1100 – Turment means a storm in the Chanson de Roland.^[5][7]
• 1130–1140 – Wace uses it for an instrument of torture.^[5]
• 1150–1160 – Thomas's Tristan uses it of mental suffering.^[5]
• c. 1200 – Used of the pain of love.^[5]
• before 1274 – Tormenz names war engines in the Grandes chroniques de France.^[5][2]
• late 12th century – The spelling tourment appears.^[2][3]
• c. 1300 – English borrows torment from Old French.^[11]
• 1541 – Used of bodily suffering and illness in a Bible translation.^[5]
• 1600 – Olivier de Serres writes of le tourment des dents “toothache”.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (archaic) torture inflicted as a punishment or to force a confession.^[10][12]
2. (literary) Very great physical pain, or intense mental suffering and anguish: les tourments du remords.^[10][12][13]
3. A serious worry, or a person or thing that causes one: cet enfant est son tourment.^[13][10]

Word family

• tourmenter
• tourmente

Related words

• tordre
• torture
• Latin tormentum
• English torment

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
3. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (2005), Le Grand Robert de la langue française, electronic version, Paris: Le Robert
4. ^ Guilbert, Louis; Lagane, René; Niobey, Georges, eds. (1971–1978; 1989), Grand Larousse de la langue française, Paris: Larousse
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
6. ^ Wartburg, Walther von, et al. (1922–2002), Französisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch, 25 vols., Bonn / Leipzig / Basel: Klopp / Teubner / Zbinden, p. 13/2, 44b
7. ^ a b c Littré, Émile (1873–1877), Dictionnaire de la langue française, 4 vols. and supplement, Paris: Hachette
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Bloch, Oscar; Wartburg, Walther von (1989), Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue française, 8th ed., Paris: Presses universitaires de France
10. ^ a b c d Rey-Debove, Josette; Rey, Alain, eds. (2007), Le Petit Robert de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ a b Dictionnaire de français Larousse, larousse.fr/dictionnaires/francais (accessed 2024)
13. ^ a b Dictionnaire Le Robert en ligne, dictionnaire.lerobert.com (accessed 2024)