The Collaborative International Dictionary
Torment \Tor*ment"\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. tormented; p. pr. & vb. n. tormenting.] [OF. tormenter, F. tourmenter.]
To put to extreme pain or anguish; to inflict excruciating misery upon, either of body or mind; to torture. `` Art thou come hither to torment us before our time? ''
--Matt. viii. 29.-
To pain; to distress; to afflict.
Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
--Matt. viii. 6. To tease; to vex; to harass; as, to be tormented with importunities, or with petty annoyances. [Colloq.]
To put into great agitation. [R.] ``[They], soaring on main wing, tormented all the air.''
--Milton.
Wiktionary
Involving or causing torment. n. The act by which somebody is tormented. v
(present participle of torment English)
Usage examples of "tormenting".
Four year olds dead of malaria, of typhus, of dengue fever, of all the horrible things that went on tormenting Africa no matter what anybody did.
I could imagine Dorr tormenting her grandfather whenever Bonnakkut came over.
I was in the utmost perplexity, yet for all that, and the imminent danger I was in, I fell asleep, and a more troubled and tormenting sleep never enchained a mortal frame.
Climbing up an espalier, he soon reached the top, and looking down on the other side, to his horror and rage espied the mad laird on the ground, and the very men of whom he had been in pursuit, standing over him and brutally tormenting him, apparently in order to make him get up and go along with them.
When he moved, increasing the tormenting contact, Chris moaned huskily in her throat, her mouth finding the hard column of his throat.
Christians, was to deprive them of the power of tormenting their fellow-subjects, whom they stigmatized with the odious titles of idolaters and heretics.
With a wild flurry of excitement building in him, Chase tightened his muscles against her tormenting touch, yielding his mouth to hers as she deepened the kiss.
Beast was no beast, but the human bandits, making beastlike sounds with curious instruments, playing and tormenting their captive with the threat of an imagined beast.
Duddy delighted in tormenting him, while Milty, on his side, yearned to join the Warriors.
Both in China and Japan the departed spirit is invested with the power of revisiting the earth, and, in a visible form, tormenting its enemies and haunting those places where the perishable part of it mourned and suffered.
Whether it was that Fortune was apprehensive lest Jones should sink under the weight of his adversity, and that she might thus lose any future opportunity of tormenting him, or whether she really abated somewhat of her severity towards him, she seemed a little to relax her persecution, by sending him the company of two such faithful friends, and what is perhaps more rare, a faithful servant.
Sweat dripped into his eye and stung, yet he remained still, lest the vision of beauty vanish like a twilight mist, become only a dream, tormenting him forever.
I also adored Trilby, her sense of humor, quick wit, and the delight she took in tormenting Rhis.
Safe and secure in the warmth of madame, Susie unburdened herself of the tormenting knowledge which was haunting her.
Unwilling to risk his new empire by returning to Cross Creek as the war draws closer threatening both his wife and mother, only the Major is there recuperating from a minor wound with an abundance of drink when a marauding band abruptly materializes to shoot him dead after degrading him mercilessly, tormenting the older woman beyond endurance and then in a prolonged scene reveling in its own depiction of cruelty raping the younger one in almost clinical detail.