Words That Should Get a Divorce (One in an occasional series on words whose relationships have grown tired)

torrential and rain

This cliched coupling is made worse by the fact that torrent, the root of torrential, means, among other things, "a violent downpour of rain." So torrential rain basically means "heavy-rain-like rain."

I'm not saying it's wrong. It's an accepted idiom that appears in the dictionary. I just wish -- oh, how I wish -- we could find an alternative that's not so incredibly tired.