Pl. torsos. [a. It. torso stalk, stump (e.g., of a cabbage), core (of apple or pear), trunk of a statue:—L. thyrsus stalk, stem (of a plant), a. Gr. θύρσος the THYRSUS (q.v.) or Bacchic wand. The common Romanic form was *turso-, whence also OF. tors, tros, trous, Pr. tros, Sp. trozo stem, stump.]
1. Sculpture. The trunk of a statue, without or considered independently of head and limbs; also, the trunk of the human body. Also attrib.
1753. Hogarth, Anal. Beauty, Pref. p. v. Michael Angelo, who is said to have discover’d a certain principle in the trunk only of an antique statue, (well known from this circumstance by the name of Michael Angelo’s Torso, or Back).
1797. Holcroft, Stolberg’s Trav. (ed. 2), II. xlvii. 144. The thigh, and torso, or body, from the neck to the hip, are inimitable.
1805. W. Taylor, in Monthly Mag., XX. 43. An antique female statue, or rather the torso of a statue, had formerly stood in the library at Wolfenbüttel.
1833. Ellis, Elgin Marbles, II. 29. The torso of Apteral Victory is 4 ft. 9 in. in height.
1860. Hawthorne, Marb. Faun, v. Headless and legless torsos.
1865. Dickens, Mut. Fr., I. ii. With … too much torso in his waistcoat.
1875. F. Wey, Rome, xxiii. 300. The Torso of the Belvedere, a colossal fragment of Herculean stature…. Michelangelo studied it to such a degree that he was wont to call himself pupil of the Torso.
1899. F. T. Bullen, Log Sea-waif, 316. Clad only in a waist-cloth, his torso was fully revealed, its splendid proportions showing a development that many a pugilist would have envied.
2. fig. Something left mutilated or unfinished.
1852. Longfellow, in Life (1891), II. 240. We have seen only the brief and mutilated torso of your speech.
1892. Stevenson, Across the Plains, 132. Headless epics, glorious torsos of dramas.
1906. H. Black, Edin. Serm., 56. Without Christ the Old Testament is only a torso.
