the.com/tort
Not a crime, not a contract — just you owing someone for the mess you made.
means A civil wrong — other than breach of contract — that harms someone and entitles them to sue for damages.
from From French 'tort' meaning 'wrong' or 'injustice,' descending from Medieval Latin 'tortum,' literally 'twisted thing' — the past participle of 'torquere,' 'to twist' (the same root that gives us 'torque' and 'torture'). The legal sense captures the idea neatly: a tort is something twisted out of its proper shape — a wrong bent into the world that the law must straighten out again.
- origin
- from latin for twisted or wrong
- covers
- negligence, defamation, nuisance, trespass
- goal
- compensation, not punishment, usually
- not
- the same word as that cake