tort
/tɔɹt/noun, adjective
tort is spelled T-O-R-T: 4 letters and one syllable. It appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 25,367th most frequent word form (wordfreq, 2021 data). People search “tort vs torte” about 40 times a month (Google, United States). As a noun, tort means “A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in…” (English Wiktionary, September 2026). The plural of tort is torts.
How many letters and syllables are in tort?
| Letters | 4: T-O-R-T |
|---|---|
| Syllables | 1 (from its American pronunciation) |
| In writing | 1.3 times per million words; the 25,367th most frequent word form |
| Wrong spellings searched | none measured in search |
| Pairs people search | |
| Sounds like | |
| Rhymes with | |
| Same letters |
Sources: letters and syllables from the English Wiktionary's hyphenation or pronunciation and the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary; 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 common is tort?
Tort appears 1.3 times per million words in written English, the 25,367th 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 tort?
- UK /tɔːt/
- US /tɔɹt/
Tort has one syllable (counted from its American pronunciation in the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract). Recordings: En-uk-tort.ogg, En-us-tort.ogg, Wikimedia Commons (author and licence on each file's page).
Words people confuse with tort
Word pairs people search, with the monthly searches for “a vs b” (G: Google, B: Bing, United States).
Sounds like: taut, torte (Wiktionary's homophone list; some hold only in some accents).
Also written: tortoise, tortoiseshell.
Sources: Google and Bing searches (September 2025 to August 2026, through DataForSEO); English Wiktionary (homophones, alternative spellings).
What rhymes with tort?
The 12 most written words on PlainSpell end in the same sounds as tort from its last stressed vowel (/ɔɹt/):
Spelled with the same letters in another order: trot.
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 tort
- torts plural
- more tort comparative
- most tort superlative
- torter comparative
- tortest superlative
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
What does tort mean?
The meanings the English Wiktionary records, quoted as written there (source below).
noun
- 1
A wrongful act, whether intentional or negligent, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes an injury and can be remedied in civil court, usually through the awarding of damages.
- 2
obsoleteAn injury or wrong.
- 3
UKobsoleteslangClipping of tortoise.
- 4
UKobsoleteslangClipping of tortoiseshell (“a domestic cat, guinea pig, rabbit, or other animal whose fur has black, brown, and yellow markings; a tortie”).
adjective
- 1
UKSynonym of tart (“sharp- or sour-tasting; (figuratively) keen, severe, sharp”)
- 2
obsoleteTwisted.
- 3
UKobsoleteSynonym of taut (“stretched tight; under tension”).
- 4
UKobsoleteOf a boat: watertight.
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).
Tort in Spanish, French, German and Portuguese
In the sense wrongful act, regarded as non-criminal and unrelated to a contract, which causes:
| Language | Words |
|---|---|
| French | délit civil |
| German | unerlaubte Handlung |
| Portuguese | ato ilícito |
| Spanish | delito civil, agravio extracontractual, tort, entuerto |
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 tort come from?
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”).
Source: English Wiktionary, dump of September 2, 2026 (CC BY-SA 4.0), through kaikki.org (Wiktextract).