torch
noun
[ tɔːtʃ ]
• a portable battery-powered electric lamp.
• a blowlamp.
• an arsonist.
torch
verb
• set fire to.
• "the shops had been looted and torched"
Similar:
burn,
set fire to,
set on fire,
set light to,
set alight,
incinerate,
ignite,
kindle,
put/set a match to,
light,
start,
touch off,
reduce to ashes,
destroy by fire,
Origin:
Middle English: from Old French torche, from Latin torqua, variant of torques ‘necklace, wreath’, from torquere ‘to twist’. The current verb sense was originally US slang and dates from the 1930s.
