Definition of "torturing"

... sae little about the elect that are tried wi' hornings, chasings, catchings, imprisonments, torturings, banishments, headings, hangings, dismemberings, and quarterings quick...

1816, Jedadiah Cleishbotham [pseudonym; Walter Scott], chapter VIII, in Tales of My Landlord, […], volume II (Old Mortality), Edinburgh: […] [James Ballantyne and Co.] for William Blackwood, […]; London: John Murray, […], page 200

Terrible shall the vengeance of the Tisroc be: even now. But kill me, and the burnings and torturings in these northern lands shall become a tale to frighten the world a thousand years hence.

1954, C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

No, I'm too busy seething over another irony: whenever I've complained about my country's torturings, renderings, detentions, etc, there's always been some smug bastard ready to respond that these measures are what guarantee smart-alecky writers like myself our freedom of speech.

2009, Barbara Ehrenreich, “My unwitting role in acts of torture”, in The Guardian‎