torch🔊

(burning stick) A stick of wood or plant fibres twisted together, with one end soaked in a flammable substance such as resin or tallow and set on fire, which is held in the hand, put into a wall bracket, or stuck into the ground, and used chiefly as a light source.

(by extension) A similarly shaped implement with a replaceable supply of flammable material; specifically, a pole with a lamp at one end.

(flashlight)(Commonwealth) (electric torch): (nocap=1).

(botany)

A flower which is red or red-orange in colour like a flame.

A (t=kind of inflorescence) made up of spikelets.

(common mullein)(in the plural) The common mullein, great mullein, or torchwort ((species)).

(obsolete) A cactus with a very elongated body; a ceroid cactus; a torch cactus or torch-thistle.

(figurative)

A source of enlightenment or guidance.

(pass on the torch) ''In'' carry,'' hand on,''take up'' pass on the torch: a precious cause, principle, tradition, etc., which needs to be protected and transmitted to others.

(science fiction) (t=a spacecraft engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion).

(US) (t=a tool which projects a controlled stream of a highly flammable gas over a spark in order to produce a controlled flame).

(slang) An arsonist.

(transitive)

To illuminate or provide (a place) with torches ''(noun (burning stick))''.

(US) To intentionally destroy (something) by setting it on fire, especially when committing arson in furtherance of some other criminal act (e.g. insurance fraud or the destruction of evidence).

(figurative) To make damaging claims about (someone or something); to ruin the reputation of (someone or something); to disparage, to insult.

(intransitive)

Of a fire: to burn.

(science fiction) To travel in a spacecraft propelled by a (t=an engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion).

(figurative) To (appear to) flare up like a torch.

(fishing) To catch fish or other aquatic animals by torchlight; to go torch-fishing.

(historical) To (t=fill up and bring to a smooth finish) (inside joints of slates laid on laths) using lime hair mortar.