torvid

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin torvidus.

Adjective

torvid (comparative more torvid, superlative most torvid)

1. (obsolete, poetic) Fierce, stern.
   • a. 1632, John Webster, Appius and Virginia; republished as William Hazlitt, editor, The Dramatic Works of John Webster, volume 3, 1857, page 219:

     […] but yesterday his breath / Aw’d Rome, and his least torved frown was death.

   • 1803, George Ardley, “Autumn Leaves; a descriptive Poem”, in The Universal Magazine, volume 1, number 5, published May 1804, page 514:

     That wary labourers, in passing by, / May not suspect his master's idle life, / Lest, urg’d by smiling truth or torvid jealousy, / They carry information to the little Nimrod of the borough town

   • 1896, Ovid, translated by John Benson Rose, The Metamorphoses of Ovid, page 110, lines 420–3:

     With torvid brow Saturnia gazed upon / Ixion, and the toiling Sisyphon, / And asked why he alone selected was / To bear such punishment […]

Further reading

• “torved”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.