Torrent
adj, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 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."
- 2 A set of files obtainable through a peer-to-peer network, especially BitTorrent. Internet
"I got a torrent of the complete works of Shakespeare the other day; I'm not sure why."
- 3 a violently fast stream of water (or other liquid) wordnet
- 4 A large amount or stream of something. figuratively
"They endured a torrent of inquiries."
- 5 a heavy rain wordnet
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- 6 an overwhelming number or amount wordnet
- 1 To fall or flow in a torrent; to pour.
"... 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."
- 2 To download in a torrent. Internet, transitive
"The video rental place didn't have the film I was after, but I managed to torrent it."
- 1 Rolling or rushing in a rapid stream.
"Waves of torrent fire."
Antonyms
All antonymsExample
More examples"The Crostolo torrent is full of nutrias."
Etymology
Borrowed from French torrent, from Italian torrente, from Latin torrentem, accusative of torrēns (“burning, seething, roaring”), from Latin torrēre (“to parch, scorch”).
From BitTorrent and the file extension it uses for metadata (.torrent); ultimately from etymology 1, carrying the notion of the flow of information.
Related phrases
More for "torrent"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.