Faire Queene, forbeare to angle for the fiſh, / Which being caught, ſtrikes him that takes it dead, / I meane that vileTorpedo, Gaueſton, / That now I hope flotes on the Iriſh Seas
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 thetorpedo's touch[…].
"A childhood Misadventure with aTorpedo," Dixon, with a brief move of his head toward Mason, confides, "— thus his Sensitivity at all References to the,"— whispering,— "electrickal!"
1918, Edgar Rice Burrows,The Land that Time Forgot[2], HTML edition, The Gutenberg Project, published2008:
I stood rigid, spellbound, watching the white wake of thetorpedo. 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, inBattle of Tsushima - When the 2nd Pacific Squadron thought it couldn't get any worse...[3], archived fromthe original on4 December 2022:
Four Japanesetorpedo boats launch an attack on theSuvorov. Despite burning steadily for several hours and now taking atorpedo to the stern, the shipstill lashes out at its attackers with a few remaining guns. With no pressing need to continue the attack to closer range, thetorpedo boats fall back, noting the position for a night attack ifSuvorov survives that long.
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 thetorpedos! God save the Queen! And the devil take the hindmost!
A kind offirework in the form of a small ball, or pellet, which explodes when thrown upon a hard object.
(historical) Anautomobile 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'swaistline, resulting in a straightbeltline from front to back.
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”, inFrontiers in Cellular Neuroscience, volume10,→DOI, article 248, page 1:
In several human neurodegenerative diseases, focal axonal swellings on Purkinje cells – known astorpedoes – have been associated with Purkinje cell loss. Interestingly,torpedoes are also reported to appear transiently during development in rat cerebellum.
2013 November, Tilman Dedering, “‘Avenge the Lusitania’: The Anti-German Riots in South Africa in 1915”, inImmigrants & Minorities, volume31, number 3,→DOI, pages256–288:
The anti-German riots which erupted simultaneously in many countries in response to thetorpedoing 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.
2021 March 7, David Hytner, “Manchester United catch City cold as Fernandes and Shaw end winning run”, inThe 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 andtorpedoing City’s sequence of 21 straight wins in all competitions.
2024 May 14, Adrian Horton, “Inside the rise and fall of Ashley Madison: ‘People literally lost their lives’”, inThe Guardian[5],→ISSN:
The Toronto-based company[…] promised a certain fantasy, particularly aimed at men: a list of women ready and willing to have an affair; a secret good time outside the bounds of one’s partnership; self-proclaimed extensive security measures to preventtorpedoing one’s domestic life.
2024 August 14, Aidan Jones, “Thai PM Srettha Thavisin dismissed from office by court”, inscmp.com[6]:
The decision (5-4) by the nine-member bench hastorpedoed Srettha’s troubled government, which has failed to gain support in parliament and among the Thai public.
2024 November 29, Lex Harvey, “Clashes erupted outside a Hindu temple near Toronto. They’re the latest sign of Canada and India’s spiraling relations”, inCNN[7]:
“It was really like a festering sore for quite some time,” said Michael Kugelman, director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, who said the disagreement over Khalistan “has reallytorpedoed the relationship.”
FromLatintorpēdō(“a torpedo fish”), fromtorpēdō(“numbness, torpidity, electric ray”), fromtorpeō(“to be stiff, numb, torpid; to be astounded; to be inactive”) and-dō(“noun suffix”), fromProto-Indo-European*ster-(“stiff”), see also Old Englishsteorfan(“to die”), Ancient Greekστερεός(stereós,“solid”), Lithuaniantirpstu(“to become rigid”), Old Church Slavonicтрупети(trupeti).
“torpedo”, inKielitoimiston sanakirja [Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish][8] (in Finnish) (online dictionary, continuously updated), Kotimaisten kielten keskuksen verkkojulkaisuja 35, Helsinki:Kotimaisten kielten tutkimuskeskus (Institute for the Languages of Finland),2004–, retrieved3 July 2023
“torpedo”, inCharlton T. Lewis (1891),An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
"torpedo", in Charles du Fresne du Cange,Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition with additions by D. P. Carpenterius, Adelungius and others, edited by Léopold Favre, 1883–1887)
