"carry a torch" meaning in English

See carry a torch in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Verb

Audio: en-au-carry a torch for.ogg [Australia] Forms: carries a torch [present, singular, third-person], carrying a torch [participle, present], carried a torch [participle, past], carried a torch [past]
Etymology: From the metaphor of a burning flame, to keep a fire burning. The association of a torch with love may date to the Greek and Roman tradition of a wedding torch, lit in the bride’s hearth on her wedding night, then used to light the hearth in her new home. Such a torch is associated with the Greek god of marriage Hymenaios. Etymology templates: {{glossary|metaphor}} metaphor Head templates: {{en-verb|*}} carry a torch (third-person singular simple present carries a torch, present participle carrying a torch, simple past and past participle carried a torch)
  1. (idiomatic) To love or to be romantically infatuated with, especially when such feelings are not reciprocated. Wikipedia link: Hymenaios Tags: idiomatic Categories (topical): Love Synonyms: carry the torch Related terms: torch song, old flame

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for carry a torch meaning in English (3.7kB)

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-05 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (f4fd8c9 and c9440ce). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.