Emily Dickinson Lexicon

TOR-PE'DO, n. [L. from torpeo, to be numb.]

1. The cramp fish or electric ray. This name designates a genus of fishes of several species, which are commonly confounded with each other. These fishes are usually taken in forty fathoms water, on the coast of France and England, and in the Mediterranean. A touch of them occasions a numbness in the limb, accompanied with an indescribable and painful sensation, and is really an electric shock. When dead, they lose the power of producing this sensation. Cyc.
2. An engine invented for the purpose of destroying shipping by blowing them up.