torrent

English

Pronunciation

(Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈtɒɹənt/
(General American, Canada) IPA^(key): /ˈtoɹənt/
- Audio (Texas): (file)
- Audio (US): (file)
(New York City, Philadelphia) IPA^(key): /ˈtɑɹənt/
- Audio (New Jersey): (file)
(Australia) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔɹənt/
(New Zealand) IPA^(key): [ˈtɔ̟ɹənt]
(Scotland) IPA^(key): /ˈtɔɾənt/
(Wales) IPA^(key): /ˈtɒɾənt/
Hyphenation: tor‧rent
Rhymes: -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)

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 (date written), 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.
(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.

Synonyms

Antonyms

Derived terms

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: χείμαρρος (el) m (cheímarros)
Ancient Greek: χειμάρρους m (kheimárrhous)
Hungarian: özön (hu)
Kurdish:
Central Kurdish: لێشاو (lêşaw)
Macedonian: по́рој m (póroj), бу́ица f (búica)
Malay: cegar
Maltese: wied m
Māori: ia, hīrere
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
Turkish:
Ottoman Turkish: سیل (seyl)

Adjective

torrent (comparative more torrent, superlative most torrent)

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.

Verb

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

To fall or flow in a torrent; to pour.
- 2016 January 28, Anna Pavord, Landskipping: Painters, Ploughmen and Places, Bloomsbury Publishing, →ISBN, page 63:
  ... through the inflexible rain, each turn in the track revealed a new cascade, torrenting down the steep cliff of the hill. The weather was too wild for me to get to them. In good weather, they wouldn't exist.
- 2024 November 11, Peter D. Thompson, The Connection, Xlibris Corporation, →ISBN:
  Outside[,] rain was torrenting down, lightning and thunder heralded the arrival of a summer storm.

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)

(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 (bg) m (torent)
Chinese:
Mandarin: 種子 / 种子 (zh)
Czech: torent m
Esperanto: torento
Georgian: ტორენტი (ṭorenṭi)
Japanese: トレント (torento)
Macedonian: то́рент m (tórent)
Marathi: टॉरेंट m (ṭŏreṇṭa)
Polish: torrent (pl) m
Portuguese: torrente (pt)
Russian: то́ррент (ru) m (tórrent)

Verb

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

(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.