torch song

noun

|Updated on: 18 Jun 2018

Definition of torch song

: a popular sentimental song of unrequited love

See torch song defined for English-language learners

Recent Examples of torch song from the Web

Any song, in her voice, turns into a torch song — mature, elegant, restrained, swollen with pathos — made for candlelit stages and a body splayed across a piano, like Michelle Pfeiffer in The Fabulous Baker Boys, except vocally talented.

— allison p. davis, The Cut, "Jorja Smith Hopes She Isn’t Boring You," 7 June 2018
Adele deconstructs the 1989 Cure classic and turns it into a Latin-tinged torch song.

— chuck arnold, Billboard, "Every Adele Song Ranked: Critic's Picks," 4 May 2018
Ere long a torch song singer was crooning some Jazz Age hits and the dance floor was crowded with flappers in fringed black shimmy frocks and their tuxedoed swains, giving us full-on Chicago in New York.

— hamish bowles, Vogue, "Hamish Bowles Goes Inside Dolce & Gabbana’s Alta Moda and Sartoria Events in New York City," 9 Apr. 2018
The arrangements vary, from ambient electronica and Appalachian Gothic to contemporary torch song and bluegrass gospel, with scarcely a hint of Cash’s trademark freight-train rhythms.

— bill friskics-warren, New York Times, "Johnny Cash’s Poems Get a Second Life as Songs," 3 Apr. 2018
Featuring a quintet of sizzling performers, conductor Harry Mayronne Jr. and directors Victoria Reed and Heidi Malnar captured the rollicking spirit of Waller through high-strutting numbers to the most soulful torch songs.

— NOLA.com, "Here are the top 10 musicals on New Orleans stages in 2017," 28 Dec. 2017
The title track, written by Rose Cousins as a torch song, is rendered here as a plea for collective ablution.

— giovanni russonello, New York Times, "Lizz Wright’s ‘Grace,’ an Ode to the South and to Forgiveness," 8 Sep. 2017

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'torch song.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.