• tortious •
Pronunciation: tor-shês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: (Law) Of or pertaining to a tort, a wrongful act that is not illegal, but results in harm to someone, curable in civil court.
Notes: Today's Good Word is a bit of legalese that covers acts that are broadly immoral but not criminal. It usually refers to acts of forgetful negligence that do not rise to the level of a crime. Tortious comes with an adverb, tortiously, and a tortfeasor is someone who commits a tort. Be careful not to confuse this word with tortuous.
In Play: Today's Good Word is often used with interference: "Celia Feight sued Seamus Allgood for tortious interference with her business when she discovered that he was falsely telling people that her goods were inferior." But not always: "John D. Rockefeller made much of his money by tortiously blackmailing railroads with loss of his business if they didn't charge his competitors higher prices than he was paying."
Word History: English heisted today's Good Word, again, from Old French tort "wrong, injustice, crime", which it inherited from Medieval Latin tortum, the neuter of tortus "wrong, twisted, bent", used as a noun. Tortus is the past participle of torquere "to twist, wring, distort", which Latin built from PIE terkw-/torkw- "to twist, turn", source also of Sanskrit tarku- "spindle", Greek atrekes "spindle", German drechseln "to turn (wood)" and quer "across, diagonally", Welsh torri "break, become bankrupt", and Polish trok "strap". Torquere was borrowed by English for its torque. (Now two words of thanks to GW editor and long, long time contributor and Agoran Luciano Eduardo de Oliveira for suggesting today's thought-provoking Good Word.)
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