Definition of "torrent"

"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!

1841 September 28, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “[Miscellaneous.] Excelsior.”, in Ballads and Other Poems, 2nd edition, Cambridge, Mass.: […] John Owen, published 1842, stanza 4, page 130

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.

2013 June 29, “High and wet”, in The Economist, volume 407, number 8842, page 28

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.

1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, part 1, stanza I, page 45

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

1907, E.M. Forster, The Longest Journey, Part III, XXXI

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

2011 December 21, Helen Pidd, “Europeans migrate south as continent drifts deeper into crisis”, in the Guardian

Waves of torrent fire.

1667, John Milton, “Book II”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], […]; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873,

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.

2009, Rick Dakan, Geek Mafia: Black Hat Blues, page 38