torrent

noun

1. A violent flow, as of water, lava, etc.; a stream suddenly raised and running rapidly, as down a precipice.

   “Rain fell on the hills in torrents.”

   “A torrent of green and white water broke over the hull of the sail-boat.”

   “"Try not the Pass!" the old man said; / "Dark lowers the tempest overhead, / The roaring torrent is deep and wide!" / And loud that clarion voice replied / Excelsior!”

   “Floods in northern India, mostly in the small state of Uttarakhand, have wrought disaster on an enormous scale.[…]Rock-filled torrents smashed vehicles and homes, burying victims under rubble and sludge.”

2. (figuratively)A large amount or stream of something.

   “They endured a torrent of inquiries.”

   “The wind was a torrent of darkness among the gusty trees, / The moon was a ghostly galleon tossed upon cloudy seas, / The road was a ribbon of moonlight over the purple moor, / And the highwayman came riding— / Riding—riding— / The highwayman came riding, up to the old inn-door.”

   “On the banks of the grey torrent of life, love is the only flower.”

   “Western civilization has always taught the repression of emotion […] The emotional torrents of opera rebel against this.”

   “A new stream of migrants is leaving the continent. It threatens to become a torrent if the debt crisis continues to worsen.”

3. (Internet)A set of files obtainable through a peer-to-peer network, especially BitTorrent.

   “I got a torrent of the complete works of Shakespeare the other day; I'm not sure why.”

adj

1. Rolling or rushing in a rapid stream.

   “Waves of torrent fire.”

verb

1. To fall or flow in a torrent; to pour.

   “... through the inflexible rain, each turn in the track revealed a new cascade, torrenting down the steep cliff of the hill. The weather was too wild for me to get to them. In good weather, they wouldn't exist.”

   “Outside[,] rain was torrenting down, lightning and thunder heralded the arrival of a summer storm.”

2. (Internet, transitive)To download in a torrent.

   “The video rental place didn't have the film I was after, but I managed to torrent it.”

   “They had two thousand CDs burned with Listnin loaded on them, including versions for every major phone OS, and they'd set up a dozen servers in seven different countries for people to torrent the file from.”