tort
n. C / Un. a legal mistake or a harmful act that causes someone else to suffer. It is not a crime like stealing, but the person who was hurt can ask for money in court to pay for the damage.
n. a civil wrong, other than a breach of contract, that causes a claimant to suffer loss or harm, resulting in legal liability for the person who commits the act. Typically involves negligence, intentional harm, or strict liability.
The lawyer specializes in personal injury tort cases.
The company faced a major tort lawsuit after their faulty product caused several minor injuries to customers.
Modern tort law seeks to balance the compensation of victims with the need to avoid placing an unreasonable burden of liability on individuals and businesses for accidental harms.
From Middle English tort (“(uncountable) wrong; (countable) an injury, a wrong”), from Old French tort (“misdeed, wrong”) (modern French tort (“an error, wrong; a fault”)), from Medieval Latin tortum (“injustice, wrong”), a noun use of a neuter singular participle form of Latin tortus (“crooked; twisted”), the perfect passive participle of torqueō (“to bend or twist awry, distort”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to spin; to turn”). Cognates * Galician torto (“(adjective) bent; crooked; twisted; (noun, archaic) harm, offence; injustice, wrong, tort”) * Italian torto (“(adjective) bent; crooked; twisted; (noun, archaic) injustice, wrong”) * Norwegian Bokmål tort (dated, now only in fixed expressions) * Norwegian Nynorsk tort (dated, now only in fixed expressions) * Occitan tort * Old French tort (modern French tort) * Portuguese torto (“(adjective) bent; crooked; twisted; (noun, archaic) harm, offence; injustice, wrong”) * Spanish tuerto (“injury, offence”)
From Middle English tort, torte (“contorted, crooked; twisted”), from Old French tort, torte (“crooked; twisted”), or from its etymon Latin tortus (“crooked; twisted”): see further at etymology 1.
A variant of tart.
A variant of taut.
Clipping of tortoise.
Clipping of tortoiseshell.
Countable when referring to specific types of legal wrongs; uncountable when referring to the branch of law in general.
He committed a tort of theft.He committed the crime of theft.A tort is a civil wrong handled in civil court; crimes are handled in criminal court. While some acts are both, 'tort' is specifically the civil classification.