Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- transitive verb To twist out of a proper or natural relation of parts; misshape.
- transitive verb To cause to deviate from what is normal, reasonable, or accurate.
- transitive verb Electronics To cause distortion in (a signal or waveform, for example).
from The Century Dictionary.
- Twisted out of shape; distorted.
- To twist or wrest out of shape; alter the shape of; change from the proper to an improper or unnatural shape; represent by an image having a shape somewhat different from nature.
- Hence—2. To turn away or pervert; cause to give or to receive erroneous views or impressions; mislead; bias.
- To wrest from the true meaning; pervert the truth regarding; misrepresent.
- Synonyms and To contort, deform, bend.
- To misapply, misuse.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective obsolete Distorted; misshapen.
- transitive verb To twist of natural or regular shape; to twist aside physically.
- transitive verb To force or put out of the true posture or direction; to twist aside mentally or morally.
- transitive verb To wrest from the true meaning; to pervert.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- verb transitive To bring something out of shape.
- verb intransitive, ergative To become
misshapen . - verb transitive To give a false or misleading account of
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb affect as in thought or feeling
- verb form into a spiral shape
- verb alter the shape of (something) by stress
- verb twist and press out of shape
- verb make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Every word has a specific meaning that will be twisted to distort from the true menaing and intent or to veil it in a shroud of uncertainty.
Obama adviser: Protesters wrong about health-care reform 2009
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Doesn't he realize he's calling 36 million Americans "socialists" and promoters of "communism" when he and Palin distort Obama's tax policies the way they do?
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Those pejorative theological terms distort and distract.
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He said McConnell also gets outside help to "distort" Lunsford record.
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Note that I realise the medium does call for a lot of adjustment to the truth e.g. taking liberties with the time involved, or shifting the place of an incident somewhere else for aesthetic reasons or time constraints and I have no problem with that, so my operative word would be "distort".
Tropic Temper Glenda Larke 2009
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Note that I realise the medium does call for a lot of adjustment to the truth e.g. taking liberties with the time involved, or shifting the place of an incident somewhere else for aesthetic reasons or time constraints and I have no problem with that, so my operative word would be "distort".
Archive 2009-08-01 Glenda Larke 2009
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Therefore, the government reasons, corporate expenditures "distort" the political process and must be banned.
Is Sean Hannity's Political Talk Hampering Our Children's Critical Thinking? 2009
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Therefore, the government reasons, corporate expenditures "distort" the political process and must be banned.
The Chance for a Free Speech Do-Over Theodore B. Olson 2009
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It means that they are qualified to lecture Judge Sotomayor on not letting her background and experience as a Latina "distort" her judgment or decisions in the cases she would review, even as they are guilty of the same thing — or would be if only they had an ethnic identity or background distinct from the dominant culture.
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The grain traders even responded to the food crisis by writing a letter to President Bush discouraging the replacement of reserves because it would "distort" grain prices.
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