A torch, by USA word usage, is a fire source, usually a rod-shaped piece of wood with a rag soaked in pitch and/or some other flammable material wrapped around one end. Torches were often supported in sconces by brackets high up on walls, to throw light over corridors in stone structures such as castles or crypts. This traditional use of the word lives on in the Olympic Torch, procession torches and the like.

In Britain and all English speaking countries outside North America, torch usually means a flashlight, and a torch which uses fire as its light-source is often called a "burning torch" to distinguish. A torch carried in relay by cross-country runners is used to light the Olympic flame which burns without interruption until the end of the Games.

If a torch is made of sulfur mixed with lime, the fire will not diminish after being plunged into water. Such torches were used by the ancient Romans.