Meaning

noun commonly the lowest molding at the base of a column

verb separate or cause to separate abruptly

verb to separate or be separated by force

originFrom Middle English tor, tore, toor, from Old Norse tor- (“hard, difficult, wrong, bad”, prefix), from Proto-Germanic *tuz- (“hard, difficult, wrong, bad”), from Proto-Indo-European *dus- (“bad, ill, difficult”). Cognate with Old High German zur- (“mis-”, prefix), Gothic 𐍄𐌿𐌶- (tuz-, “hard, difficult”, prefix), Ancient Greek δυσ- (dus-, “bad, ill, difficult”, prefix). More at dys-.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0