torch
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
From Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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The noun is derived from Middle English torch, torche (“large candle; lighted stick; (figurative) sunbeam”),[1] 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 torqua, a variant of torquis (“collar of twisted metal, torque; wreath”), from torqueō (“to twist, wind”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to spin; to turn”).[2]
Sense 2.3 (Verbascum thapsus) is either due to the plant’s spike of yellow flowers, or because its leaves and stalks were used to make torches (noun sense 1). Sense 3.2 (“precious cause, etc., which needs to be protected and transmitted to others”) is derived from Latin lampada trādere, from Ancient Greek λᾰμπᾰ́δᾰ πᾰρᾰδιδόναι (lampáda paradidónai, “to hand over the torch”), a reference to the torch race held at various festivals such as the Panathenaic Games in Ancient Greece,[2] which involved a relay where a torch was passed from one runner to another.
The verb is derived from the noun.[3]
torch (plural torches)
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torch (third-person singular simple present torches, present participle torching, simple past and past participle torched)
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Borrowed from French torcher (“to daub; to wipe; to build or plaster with clay mixed with chopped straw”), from torche (“bundle of (twisted) straw; torch”) (see further at etymology 1)[4] + -er (suffix forming the infinitives of first-conjugation verbs).
torch (third-person singular simple present torches, present participle torching, simple past and past participle torched)
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