tortured
v.v. to cause someone great physical or mental pain. People often use this word to describe hurting someone to get information or just to be cruel.
v. to inflict severe physical or mental pain upon a person or animal. Often used in legal or human rights contexts to describe the extraction of information or the exertion of power through suffering.
The guards tortured the prisoner to find out the secret code.
The regime was accused of having tortured political dissidents in secret facilities across the country.
Historians have documented how the inquisitors tortured suspects not only to gain confessions but to instill a pervasive sense of fear throughout the local population.
The verb is transitive and requires a direct object; it can also be used figuratively to describe mental distress.
He was tortured from his memoriesHe was tortured by his memoriesWhen describing the cause of mental or physical suffering in the passive voice, use the preposition 'by' rather than 'from'.