Torque

How to spell torque

6 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce torque

What does torque mean?

1. nounA twisting or rotational force, especially one produced by an engine or applied by a tool.
2. verbTo apply a twisting force to something, typically to tighten it to a set specification.

Torque in a sentence

• noun

  The diesel engine delivers far more torque at low speed than the petrol version.

• verb

  The manual tells you to torque each wheel nut in a star pattern.

• noun

  A calibrated wrench lets you tighten each bolt to the exact torque the manual specifies.

• verb

  Always torque the cylinder head bolts gradually rather than all at once.

Where does torque come from?

Language of origin: Latin

The word comes from the Latin verb torquere, which literally meant 'to twist' or 'to wind'. It also gave Latin the noun torques, the name for the twisted metal collar or necklace worn by ancient Celtic and Roman peoples, and that older sense was actually the first to enter English. The modern physics meaning, a rotating or twisting force that tends to cause rotation, was adopted in the nineteenth century by engineers and scientists who reached back to the same Latin root. The same torquere lies behind a whole family of English words about twisting, including 'torture' (literally a wrenching of the body), 'contort', 'distort' and 'tortuous'. The unusual -que ending preserves the Latin and French look of the word and is the main spelling trap, since the sound is simply a plain 'k'.

How the word is built

• torqu- (from Latin torquere: to twist)
• -e