torpedo

• Borrowed from Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish; numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“I am stiff, numb, torpid; I am astounded; I am inactive”) +‎ -ēdō (noun suffix), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”). In the military sense coined by Robert Fulton in 1805. Cognate with Old English steorfan (“to die”), Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”), Lithuanian tirpstu (“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonic трупети (trupeti).
• (type of car): From 1908, after "the Torpedo", a car designed by Captain Theo Masui.

• (UK) IPA^(key): /ˌtɔː(ɹ)ˈpiː.dəʊ/
• (US) IPA^(key): /ˌtoɹˈpi.doʊ/

• Audio (General Australian):

  (file)

• Hyphenation: tor‧pe‧do
• Rhymes: -iːdəʊ

torpedo (plural torpedoes or torpedos)

1. (zoology) An electric ray of the genus Torpedo.
   • 1594, Christopher Marlow[e], The Troublesome Raigne and Lamentable Death of Edward the Second, King of England: […], London: […] [Eliot’s Court Press] for Henry Bell, […], published 1622, →OCLC, [Act I]:

     Faire Queene, forbeare to angle for the fiſh, / Which being caught, ſtrikes him that takes it dead, / I meane that vile Torpedo, Gaueſton, / That now I hope flotes on the Iriſh Seas

   • 1790, Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Men‎^[1]:

     The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in which he is born, and the consequent homage that benumbed his faculties like the torpedo's touch […] .

   • 1997, Thomas Pynchon, Mason & Dixon, New York: Henry Holt and Company, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 286:

     "A childhood Misadventure with a Torpedo," Dixon, with a brief move of his head toward Mason, confides, "— thus his Sensitivity at all References to the,"— whispering,— "electrickal!"

2. (military) A cylindrical explosive projectile that can travel underwater and is used as a weapon. [from 1805]

   Synonyms: torp, fish

   • 1918, Edgar Rice Burrows, The Land that Time Forgot‎^[2], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published 2008:

     I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of the torpedo. It struck us on the starboard side almost amidships. The vessel rocked as though the sea beneath it had been uptorn by a mighty volcano.

   • 2019 September 18, Drachinifel, 25:58 from the start, in Battle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse...‎^[3], archived from the original on 4 December 2022:

     Four Japanese torpedo boats launch an attack on the Suvorov. Despite burning steadily for several hours and now taking a torpedo to the stern, the ship still lashes out at its attackers with a few remaining guns. With no pressing need to continue the attack to closer range, the torpedo boats fall back, noting the position for a night attack if Suvorov survives that long.

   • 2020, Ted Bell, Dragonfire, New York, N.Y.: Berkley, published 2021, →ISBN, page 536:

     And if fate should turn her back on them, or turn away from them, leaving them to their own devices, and should they find themselves be sore afraid, then they would simply sail away to the other side of the world. They would ride like the wind. They would sail once more into the breach and damn the torpedos! God save the Queen! And the devil take the hindmost!

   1. (science fiction) A similar projectile that can travel through space.
3. (Northeastern US) A submarine sandwich.

   Synonym: sub

4. (archaic, military) A naval mine.
5. (obsolete, military) An explosive device buried underground and set off remotely, to destroy fortifications, troops, or cavalry; a land torpedo.
6. (slang) A professional gunman or assassin.
7. (rail transport, US) A small explosive device attached to the top of the rail to provide an audible warning when a train passes over it.

   Synonym: (UK) detonator

8. A kind of firework in the form of a small ball, or pellet, which explodes when thrown upon a hard object.
9. (historical) An automobile with a streamlined profile and a folding or detachable soft top, and having the hood or bonnet line raised to be level with the car's waistline, resulting in a straight beltline from front to back.
10. (neuroscience) A focal ovoid swelling on the axons of Purkinje cells, observed in several diseases such as essential tremor and spinocerebellar ataxia.
    • 2016 November 2, Lovisa Ljungberg, Daneck Lang-Ouellette, Angela Yang, Sriram Jayabal, Sabrina Quilez, Alanna J. Watt, “Transient Developmental Purkinje Cell Axonal Torpedoes in Healthy and Ataxic Mouse Cerebellum”, in Frontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, volume 10, →DOI, article 248, page 1:

      In several human neurodegenerative diseases, focal axonal swellings on Purkinje cells – known as torpedoes – have been associated with Purkinje cell loss. Interestingly, torpedoes are also reported to appear transiently during development in rat cerebellum.

11. (slang, chiefly US, usually in the plural) A woman's shoe with a pointed toe. [1910s]
12. (slang, chiefly US, usually in the plural) A large breast; a breast with a large nipple. [from 1960s]
13. (slang) A marijuana cigarette.

    Synonyms: see Thesaurus:marijuana cigarette

    1. A thick marijuana cigarette. [1940s]
    2. A cigarette containing marijuana and crack cocaine. [from 1980s]

• torpid

torpedo (third-person singular simple present torpedoes or torpedos, present participle torpedoing, simple past and past participle torpedoed)

1. (transitive) To strike (a ship) with one or more torpedoes.
2. (transitive) To sink (a ship) with one or more torpedoes.
   • 2013 November, Tilman Dedering, “‘Avenge the Lusitania’: The Anti-German Riots in South Africa in 1915”, in Immigrants & Minorities, volume 31, number 3, →DOI, pages 256–288:

     The anti-German riots which erupted simultaneously in many countries in response to the torpedoing of the Lusitania by a German U-boat in 1915 reflected shifts in the status of minorities in multi-ethnic societies at a time of escalating nationalist emotions.

3. (transitive, figurative) To undermine or destroy any endeavor with a powerful attack.
   • 2021 March 7, David Hytner, “Manchester United catch City cold as Fernandes and Shaw end winning run”, in The Guardian‎^[4]:

     The left-back had been a selection concern because of an injury niggle but his first goal since last March swung this derby decisively in United’s favour, extending their club record unbeaten run away from home in the Premier League to 22 games and torpedoing City’s sequence of 21 straight wins in all competitions.

   • 2024 August 14, Aidan Jones, “Thai PM Srettha Thavisin dismissed from office by court”, in scmp.com‎^[5]:

     The decision (5-4) by the nine-member bench has torpedoed Srettha’s troubled government, which has failed to gain support in parliament and among the Thai public.

• optrode, pet door, toe drop, trooped

From English torpedo, borrowed from Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish; numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“I am stiff, numb, torpid; I am astounded; I am inactive”) +‎ -ēdō (noun suffix), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”).

• Hyphenation: tor‧pe‧do

torpedo

1. (military) a torpedo; a cylindrical explosive projectile that can travel underwater and is used as a weapon

From Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish”), from torpēdō (“numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), from torpeō (“I am stiff, numb, torpid; I am astounded; I am inactive”) and -dō (“noun suffix”), from Proto-Indo-European *ster- (“stiff”), see also Old English steorfan (“to die”), Ancient Greek στερεός (stereós, “solid”), Lithuanian tirpstu (“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonic трупети (trupeti).

• IPA^(key): /tɔrˈpeː.doː/

• Audio:

  (file)

• Hyphenation: tor‧pe‧do

torpedo f or m (plural torpedo's, diminutive torpedootje n)

1. a torpedo (projectile adapted for underwater use)
2. (dated) a low-lying streamlined car

• torpedoboot

• torpederen

From English torpedo, Spanish torpedo, German Torpedo; all ultimately from Latin torpedo.

• IPA^(key): /torˈpedo/
• Rhymes: -edo
• Hyphenation: tor‧pe‧do

torpedo (accusative singular torpedon, plural torpedoj, accusative plural torpedojn)

1. torpedo

• torpedi

• torpeedo (archaic)

From English torpedo, from Latin torpēdō.

• IPA^(key): /ˈtorpe(ː)do/, [ˈt̪o̞rpe̞(ː)do̞]
• Rhymes: -orpedo
• Syllabification^(key): tor‧pe‧do
• Hyphenation^(key): tor‧pe‧do

torpedo

1. torpedo (self-propelled cylindrical explosive projectile that can travel underwater)
2. (slang) criminal debt collector

• “torpedo”, in Kielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish]‎^[6] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki: Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland), 2004–, retrieved 3 July 2023

torpedo f (invariable)

1. tourer (motorcar)

• torpedine

• deporto, deportò

torpeō (“I am stiff or numb”) +‎ -ēdō.

• (Classical Latin) IPA^(key): [tɔrˈpeː.doː]
• (modern Italianate Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): [t̪orˈpɛː.d̪o]

torpēdō f (genitive torpēdinis); third declension

1. lethargy, inertness, sluggishness
2. torpedo fish

Third-declension noun.

• “torpedo”, in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• “torpedo”, in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• "torpedo", in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)

From Latin torpedo, via English torpedo or German Torpedo.

torpedo m (definite singular torpedoen, indefinite plural torpedoer, definite plural torpedoene)

1. a torpedo

• torpedere

• “torpedo” in The Bokmål Dictionary.

From Latin torpedo, via English torpedo or German Torpedo.

torpedo m (definite singular torpedoen, indefinite plural torpedoar, definite plural torpedoane)

1. a torpedo

• torpedere

• “torpedo” in The Nynorsk Dictionary.

Learned borrowing from Latin torpēdō. Compare torpor.

• Rhymes: -edu
• Hyphenation: tor‧pe‧do

torpedo m (plural torpedos)

1. torpedo (explosive device with its own propulsion and direction, designed to produce explosions on ships)
2. electric ray, torpedo
3. (Brazil, informal) billet-doux (note delivered by an intermediary, usually in a public place and with the intention of romantic conquest)
4. (Brazil, informal) SMS (written message sent between mobile phones)

• “torpedo” in Dicionário Aberto based on Novo Diccionário da Língua Portuguesa de Cândido de Figueiredo, 1913
• “torpedo”, in Dicionário infopédia da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Porto: Porto Editora, 2003–2025
• “torpedo”, in Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), São Paulo: Editora Melhoramentos, 2015–2025
• “torpedo”, in Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa (in Portuguese), Lisbon: Priberam, 2008–2025

• IPA^(key): /torpěːdo/
• Hyphenation: tor‧pe‧do

torpédo m inan (Cyrillic spelling торпе́до)

1. torpedo

From Latin torpēdō (“a torpedo fish”).

• IPA^(key): /toɾˈpedo/ [t̪oɾˈpe.ð̞o]

• Audio:

  (file)

• Rhymes: -edo
• Syllabification: tor‧pe‧do

torpedo m (plural torpedos)

1. torpedo (fish)

   Synonyms: raya torpedo, raya negra, raya eléctrica

2. torpedo (weapon)
3. (Chile) cheat sheet

   Synonyms: acordeón, batería, machete

4. (Chile) prompt, script

• “torpedo”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 10 December 2024