torpedo
Speech parts
1. torpedo - Noun
2. torpedo - Verb
Meaning
Any one of numerous species of elasmobranch fishes belonging to Torpedo and allied genera. They are related to the rays, but have the power of giving electrical shocks. Called also crampfish, and numbfish. See Electrical fish, under Electrical.
An engine or machine for destroying ships by blowing them up.
A quantity of explosives anchored in a channel, beneath the water, or set adrift in a current, and so arranged that they will be exploded when touched by a vessel, or when an electric circuit is closed by an operator on shore.
A kind of small submarine boat carrying an explosive charge, and projected from a ship against another ship at a distance, or made self-propelling, and otherwise automatic in its action against a distant ship.
A kind of shell or cartridge buried in earth, to be exploded by electricity or by stepping on it.
A kind of detonating cartridge or shell placed on a rail, and exploded when crushed under the locomotive wheels, -- used as an alarm signal.
An explosive cartridge or shell lowered or dropped into a bored oil well, and there exploded, to clear the well of obstructions or to open communication with a source of supply of oil.
A kind of firework in the form of a small ball, or pellet, which explodes when thrown upon a hard object.
to destroy by, or subject to the action of, a torpedo.
Source: Webster's dictionarySynonyms
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Examples
Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
We must ride this strange torpedo out until the end.
This museum is a torpedo moving through time, its head the ever-advancing present, its tail the ever-receding past of 50 to 100 years ago.
Be it whim or emergency, the modern laboratory is equally at the service of romance, equally ready to gratify mankind with a torpedo or a toy.
For me, it's a bigger challenge, it's much harder to do and much more rewarding to do well, then just to think up stuff of your own, hit or miss, because you've got to see to it that you don't torpedo any of his punch lines.
Aside from being bad sportsmanship - Romney basically said Obama won by cheating - he was displaying the same obtuseness about the wants and needs of ordinary people that did more to torpedo his campaign than any goodies Obama might have had to dole out.