torch
/ˈtɔːtʃ/noun, verb
torch is spelled T-O-R-C-H. The wrong spelling people search most is tourch: about 260 Bing searches a month in the United States (September 2025 to August 2026), about 1 in 45 of all searches for the word. Torch is a noun meaning “A stick of wood or plant fibres twisted together, with one end soaked in a flammable substance such as resin…”. The plural of torch is torches.
How many letters and syllables are in torch?
| Letters | 5: T-O-R-C-H |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 |
| In writing | 5.5 times per million words; the 10,519th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | 1; the most searched, tourch, about 260 Bing searches a month (all of them) |
| Rhymes with |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation; written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media); Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026); rhymes and same-letter words are computed by PlainSpell from its own word list.
How do you spell torch?
Torch is spelled T-O-R-C-H. One wrong spelling is searched or written often enough to measure; together they are about 1 in 45 of the searches for torch in either form.
Bing searches in the United States: the average month from September 2025 to August 2026 (Microsoft Advertising keyword data through DataForSEO, read September 30, 2026). Wrong spellings are taken from Wiktionary entries tagged "misspelling" and its obsolete or nonstandard forms, Wikipedia's Lists of common misspellings and the codespell dictionary, then measured. The proofreader's marks show the change that corrects each one.
How common is torch?
Torch appears 5.5 times per million words in written English, the 10,519th most frequent word form in the list.
Source: written frequency: wordfreq 3.1 (a 2021 snapshot of Wikipedia, subtitles, news, books, web text and social media).
How do you pronounce torch?
- UK /ˈtɔːtʃ/
- UK [ˈtʰɔːt͡ʃ] ~ [ˈtʰo̞ːt͡ʃ]
- British /ˈtoːtʃ/
Torch has one syllable.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-au-torch.ogg, En-us-torch.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with torch
Also written: electric torch.
Sources: English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with torch?
One word on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as torch from its last stressed vowel (/ɔtʃ/, British pronunciation):
Computed by PlainSpell from the pronunciations in the English Wiktionary (dump of September 2, 2026): a rhyme shares every sound from the last stressed vowel to the end; ordered by written frequency (wordfreq 3.1).
Forms of torch
- torches plural, present, singular, he/she/it
- torching participle, present
- torched participle, past
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does torch mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
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.
The mob of angry villagers carried torches and pitchforks to the vampire’s castle.
- 2
A similarly shaped implement with a replaceable supply of flammable material; specifically, a pole with a lamp at one end.
- 3
CommonwealthEllipsis of electric torch: synonym of flashlight (“a battery-powered hand-held light source”).
Ernst slipped and dropped his torch on the flagstones, shattering the bulb and plunging us into darkness.
- 4
A flower which is red or red-orange in colour like a flame.
- 5
A spike (“kind of inflorescence”) made up of spikelets.
- 6
The common mullein, great mullein, or torchwort (Verbascum thapsus).
- 7
obsoleteA cactus with a very elongated body; a ceroid cactus; a torch cactus or torch-thistle.
- 8
A source of enlightenment or guidance.
verb
- 1
To illuminate or provide (a place) with torches (noun etymology 1, noun sense 1).
- 2
informalTo 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).
Some hoodlums had torched a derelict automobile, which emitted a ghastly pall of thick, black smoke that filled the street.
- 3
To make damaging claims about (someone or something); to ruin the reputation of (someone or something); to disparage, to insult.
That influencer torched the company’s PR department.
- 4
Of a fire: to burn.
The flames torched up twenty feet in the air.
- 5
To travel in a spacecraft propelled by a torch drive (“an engine which produces thrust by nuclear fusion”).
- 6
UKTo (appear to) flare up like a torch.
- 7
USTo catch fish or other aquatic animals by torchlight; to go torch-fishing.
- 8
archaicTo point (“fill up and bring to a smooth finish”) (inside joints of slates laid on laths) using lime hair mortar.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Torch in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | torche, flambeau , incendier |
| German | Fackel , anzünden |
| Portuguese | tocha , incendiar |
| Spanish | antorcha , incendiar |
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Translations are Wiktionary's, by sense; a linked word has its own PlainSpell page.
Where does torch come from?
The noun is derived from Middle English torch, torche (“large candle; lighted stick; (figurative) sunbeam”), from Old French torche, torque (“torch; bundle of (twisted) straw”) (modern French torche); further etymology uncertain, probably from Vulgar Latin *torca (“coiled object”) (referring to a torch made from twisted plant fibres dipped in a flammable substance such as pitch), from Latin torqua, a variant of torquis (“collar of twisted metal, torque; wreath”), from torqueō (“to twist, wind”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *terkʷ- (“to spin; to turn”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).