Meaning

noun extreme mental distress

noun unbearable physical pain

noun intense feelings of suffering; acute mental or physical pain

originFrom Middle English torture, from Old French torture, from Late Latin tortūra (“a twisting, writhing, of bodily pain, a griping colic;” in Medieval Latin “pain inflicted by judicial or ecclesiastical authority as a means of persuasion, torture”), from Latin tortus (whence also tort), past participle of torquēre (“to twist”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0