torrent

English

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɒɹ.ənt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔɹ.ənt/
• (New York City, Philadelphia) IPA^(key): /ˈtɑɹ.ənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: (Received Pronunciation) -ɒɹənt

Etymology 1

Borrowed from French torrent, from Italian torrente, from Latin torrentem, accusative of torrēns (“burning, seething, roaring”), from Latin torrēre (“to parch, scorch”).

Noun

torrent (plural torrents)

1. A violent flow, as of water, lava, etc.; a stream suddenly raised and running rapidly, as down a precipice.

   Rain fell on the hills in torrents.

   A torrent of green and white water broke over the hull of the sail-boat.

   • 1841 September 28, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] Excelsior.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1842, →OCLC, stanza 4, page 130:

     "Try not the Pass!" the old man said; / "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, / The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" / And loud that clarion voice replied / Excelsior!

   • 2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28:

     Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale. […] Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.

2. (figuratively) A large amount or stream of something.

   They endured a torrent of inquiries.

   • 1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 1, stanza I, page 45:

     The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, / The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, / The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, / And the highwayman came riding— / Riding—riding— / The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.

   • 1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part III, XXXI [Uniform ed., p. 278]:

     On the banks of the grey torrent of life, love is the only flower.

   • 1981 December 5, Michael Bronski, “Coming (Out) to Opera”, in Gay Community News, volume 9, number 20, page 6:

     Western civilization has always taught the repression of emotion […] The emotional torrents of opera rebel against this.

   • 2011 December 21, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis”, in the Guardian:

     A new stream of migrants is leaving the continent. It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.

Derived terms

• BitTorrent
• torrent-bow
• torrent duck
• torrentfish
• torrential
• torrentine
• torrent-lark

 

Related terms

• torrid
• toast

Translations

violent flow, as of water etc.

• Albanian: përrua (sq), rrua
• Aromanian: flumin (roa-rup)
• Assamese: হাৱৰ (hawor)
• Bengali: সয়লাব (bn) (śôẏlab)
• Bulgarian: порой (bg) m (poroj)
• Catalan: torrent (ca) m, riera (ca) f
• Chinese:

  Mandarin: 奔流 (zh) (bēnliú), 急流 (zh) (jíliú), 洪流 (zh) (hóngliú)

• Dutch: stortvloed (nl) m, stroom (nl) m
• Esperanto: torento
• Finnish: hyöky, vyöry (fi)
• French: torrent (fr) m
• Galician: dioivo (gl) m, doira f, bullón m, enxurrada (gl) f, quenlle m, frieira f
• Georgian: ნიაღვარი (niaɣvari), ღვარი (ɣvari), ნაკადი (naḳadi), ლანქერი (lankeri)
• German: Strom (de) m, Schwall (de) m, Sturzflut (de) f
• Greek:

  Ancient: χειμάρρους m (kheimárrhous)

• Hungarian: özön (hu)
• Kurdish:

  Central Kurdish: لێشاو (lêşaw)

• Macedonian: по́рој m (póroj), бу́ица f (búica)
• Malay: cegar
• Maltese: wied m
• Maori: ia, hīrere
• Ottoman Turkish: سیل (seyl)
• Persian: سیلاب (fa) (seylâb)
• Polish: potok (pl) m
• Portuguese: torrente (pt) f
• Romanian: torent (ro) n, puhoi (ro)
• Russian: пото́к (ru) m (potók)
• Scottish Gaelic: tuil f, taom m, gàth f
• Slovene: hudournik (sl) m
• Spanish: torrente (es) m
• Swedish: skur (sv) c, ström (sv) c, fors (sv) c

Adjective

torrent (comparative more torrent, superlative most torrent)

1. Rolling or rushing in a rapid stream.
   • 1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC:

     Waves of torrent fire.

See also

• barrage
• inundate
• deluge
• torrential

Etymology 2

From BitTorrent and the file extension it uses for metadata (.torrent); ultimately from etymology 1, carrying the notion of the flow of information.

Noun

torrent (plural torrents)

1. (Internet, file sharing) A set of files obtainable through a peer-to-peer network, especially BitTorrent.

   I got a torrent of the complete works of Shakespeare the other day; I'm not sure why.

Translations

file transfers

• Assamese: টৰেন (toren)
• Bulgarian: торент m (torent)
• Czech: torent m
• Esperanto: torento
• Georgian: ტორენტი (ṭorenṭi)
• Macedonian: то́рент m (tórent)
• Marathi: टॉरेंट m (ṭŏreṇṭa)
• Polish: torrent (pl) m
• Russian: то́ррент (ru) m (tórrent)

Verb

torrent (third-person singular simple present torrents, present participle torrenting, simple past and past participle torrented)

1. (Internet slang, transitive) To download in a torrent.

   The video rental place didn't have the film I was after, but I managed to torrent it.

   • 2009, Rick Dakan, Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues, page 38:

     They had two thousand CDs burned with Listnin loaded on them, including versions for every major phone OS, and they'd set up a dozen servers in seven different countries for people to torrent the file from.

Derived terms

• torrenter

Catalan

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin torrentem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central) [tuˈren]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic, Valencia) [toˈrent]

Noun

torrent m (plural torrents)

1. torrent

Derived terms

• torrencial
• torrentada
• torrentol

 

Further reading

• “torrent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

French

Etymology

Borrowed from Italian torrente, from Latin torrentem.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tɔ.ʁɑ̃/

• Audio:

  (file)

Noun

torrent m (plural torrents)

1. a torrent

Descendants

• → English: torrent
• → Romanian: torent

Further reading

• “torrent”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

Latin

Verb

torrent

1. third-person plural present active indicative of torreō

Welsh

Alternative forms

• torren (colloquial)

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtɔrɛnt/

Verb

torrent

1. (literary) third-person plural imperfect/conditional of torri
2. (literary) third-person plural imperative of torri

Mutation

Welsh mutation
radical	soft	nasal	aspirate
torrent	dorrent	nhorrent	thorrent
Note: Some of these forms may be hypothetical. Not every possible mutated form of every word actually occurs.