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torch

Pronunciation: /ˈtɔːtʃ/

The English word “torch” has 17 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A stick of wood or plant fibres twisted together, with one end soaked in a flammable substance such as resin or tallow and set on fire, which is held in the hand, put into a wall bracket, or stuck into the ground, and used chiefly as a light source.
  2. A similarly shaped implement with a replaceable supply of flammable material; specifically, a pole with a lamp at one end.
  3. A flower which is red or red-orange in colour like a flame.
  4. A spike (“kind of inflorescence”) made up of spikelets.
  5. The common mullein, great mullein, or torchwort (Verbascum thapsus).
  6. A cactus with a very elongated body; a ceroid cactus; a torch cactus or torch-thistle.
  7. A source of enlightenment or guidance.
  8. In carry, hand on, pass on, take up the torch: a precious cause, principle, tradition, etc., which needs to be protected and transmitted to others.
  9. An arsonist.

verb

  1. To illuminate or provide (a place) with torches (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1).
  2. To intentionally destroy (something) by setting it on fire, especially when committing arson in furtherance of some other criminal act (e.g. insurance fraud or the destruction of evidence).
  3. To make damaging claims about (someone or something); to ruin the reputation of (someone or something); to disparage, to insult.
  4. Of a fire: to burn.
  5. To travel in a spacecraft propelled by a torch drive (“an engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion”).
  6. To (appear to) flare up like a torch.
  7. To catch fish or other aquatic animals by torchlight; to go torch-fishing.
  8. To point (“fill up and bring to a smooth finish”) (inside joints of slates laid on laths) using lime hair mortar.

Etymology

The noun is derived from Middle English torch, torche (“large candle; lighted stick; (figurative) sunbeam”), from Old French torche, torque (“torch; bundle of (twisted) straw”) (modern French torche); further etymology uncertain, probably from Vulgar Latin *torca (“coiled object”) (referring to a torch made from twisted plant fibres dipped in a flammable substance such as pitch), from Latin…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.