This article proposes a detailed case study of the French term supplice, title and central argument of the first part of Foucault’s Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (1975). The translator Sheridan mainly renders supplice as torture in English. This choice is problematic, in particular with regards to the French term la torture which also becomes torture in the translation. The methodological approach is twofold. First, the differentiation between operative and thematic concepts developed by Leclerc-Olive (2016) serves as a theoretical framework to determine the different functions as central arguments and to consider the regularity with which a concept ought to be translated. Second, the comparison of English translations of works by Montesquieu and Voltaire allow for a better understanding of the historical context and the different translations resulting from this. In addition, Foucault uses English sources which he translates himself and which show ways of describing supplice in English. In conclusion, it will be argued that torture in English is not an equivalent of supplice in French and that this translation choice is questionable.