tort
A tort is a civil wrong — when one person's careless or harmful act injures another, and the law lets the victim sue for money to make it right. Picture a shop that mops its floor but forgets the "wet floor" sign: a customer slips, breaks a wrist, and racks up a hospital bill. That slip is a classic tort, and the law's answer is not punishment but a check to cover the damage.
Here's the key split that trips people up: a tort is not a crime. A crime is an offense against society, prosecuted by the state, which can lock you up. A tort is a dispute between private parties, and a defendant found liable owes the victim money to cover the harm, rather than facing prison. The very same act, like a drunk-driving crash, can be both: the state prosecutes the crime, while the injured person separately sues in tort for their medical bills.
Most torts turn on negligence — failing to take the care a reasonable person would. But torts also cover deliberate harms (hitting someone, trashing their property) and even some accidents where you're liable no matter how careful you were. The unifying thread is simple: you hurt someone you had a duty not to hurt, so you owe them.
A dog bites a passerby; the owner had a duty to control the dog, breached it, and so must pay the victim's medical costs — a tort, settled in money, not jail.
"Tort" comes from the Latin tortus, "twisted" or "wrong" — the same root as "torture" and "distort" — reaching English through Old French, where tort simply meant "a wrong." In civil-law countries the same ground is often called "delict" or "extra-contractual liability."