tort

Meaning

Noun

1. 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.
2. (obsolete) An injury or wrong.

Adj

Twisted.

Adj

Synonym of tart (“sharp- or sour-tasting; (figuratively) keen, severe, sharp”)

Adj

1. (obsolete) Synonym of taut (“stretched tight; under tension”)
2. (obsolete) Of a boat: watertight.

Synonyms

offence

delict

offense

damage

injury

civil wrong

wrong

misdemeanor

misdemeanour

infraction

infringement

loss

malpractice

mischief

misconduct

misdeed

prejudice

renege

sponge cake

transgression

violation

wrongdoing

criminal offence

evildoing

illegal act

abuse

crime

act of tort

breach

civil trespass

brush with the law

contravention

decrement

detriment

disservice

harm

hurt

illegal activity

Pronounced as (IPA)

/tɔːt/

Etymology

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”)