Noah Webster's New International Dictionary of the English Language

1. (n.) Extreme pain; anguish of body or mind; pang; agony; torment; as, torture of mind.

2. (n.) Especially, severe pain inflicted judicially, either as punishment for a crime, or for the purpose of extorting a confession from an accused person, as by water or fire, by the boot or thumbkin, or by the rack or wheel.

3. (n.) The act or process of torturing.

4. (v. t.) To put to torture; to pain extremely; to harass; to vex.

5. (v. t.) To punish with torture; to put to the rack; as, to torture an accused person.

6. (v. t.) To wrest from the proper meaning; to distort.

7. (v. t.) To keep on the stretch, as a bow.