Meaning

noun (law) any wrongdoing for which an action for damages may be brought

originFrom 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…

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0