Meaning
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.
Etymology
Origin: Middle English
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”)
Synonyms & Antonyms
Synonyms
NYT Puzzle Appearances
Accepted in 26 recorded puzzles:
- 2026-08-27TAMORWY
- 2026-07-14TCILORV
- 2026-03-19RAIJNOT
- 2026-03-18RAIJNOT
- 2026-01-06TARBIOV
- 2025-12-16TWARNHO
- 2025-12-06OYAURCT
- 2025-07-14TBRHGOU
- 2025-06-19OVATMIR
- 2025-06-05RATCULO
- 2025-04-13OMTPNRY
- 2025-03-15OVATRIL
+14 earlier appearances in the archive.