DISTORT • DICTIONARY ONE.COM • Definition of Distort

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/dɪstˈɔrt/ Listen

verb

Distort v. t. (past & past part. distorted; pres. part. distorting)

To twist of natural or regular shape; to twist aside physically; as, to distort the limbs, or the body. "Whose face was distorted with pain."

To force or put out of the true posture or direction; to twist aside mentally or morally. "Wrath and malice, envy and revenge, do darken and distort the understandings of men."

To wrest from the true meaning; to pervert; as, to distort passages of Scripture, or their meaning.

Synonyms: To twist; wrest; deform; pervert.

adjective

Distort adj. Distorted; misshapen. (Obs.) "Her face was ugly and her mouth distort."

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Etymology of 'Distort'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Distort" Quotes from Famous Books

... hardly ever answered truthfully and do more harm than good, because they tend to arouse suspicions as to the questioner's motives. Such information is obtained more readily by cultivating the friendship of boys than by consulting the older folks. This tendency to disguise or to distort the truth, though it has its natural basis in a desire for self-protection, gives the Manbos a reputation for lack of that straightforwardness and frankness that is so noticeable among the Mandyas, even after ...

— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan

... to excite vivid visions and distort the imagination, and, therefore, employed in the magical rites, were the thiuimeezque, in Michoacan, and the chacuaco, ...

— Nagualism - A Study in Native American Folk-lore and History • Daniel G. Brinton

... such as his will abide to the end, Do what you will, distort your ways you may wend, Hardships and knocks but insure him your friend Shown by the ...

— Ohio Arbor Day 1913: Arbor and Bird Day Manual - Issued for the Benefit of the Schools of our State • Various

... choose of ourselves ... one can't expect every one to understand on the spot the uselessness of intellect 'seething in vain activity' ... and so we get again one monster the more in the world, one more of those worthless creatures in whom habits of self-ccnsciousness distort the very striving for truth, and a ludicrous simplicity exists side by side with a pitiful duplicity ... one of those beings of impotent, restless thought who all their lives know neither the satisfaction of natural activity, nor genuine suffering, nor the genuine thrill of conviction.... ...

— The Diary of a Superfluous Man and Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev

... attention was shown me by all. Another officer told me that before I came the officers of the garrison assembled to consider whether or not they should recognize me. The unanimous vote was "yes." Was all this official? No. It is the white people, the disappointed tyrants of Georgia, who try to distort social courtesies in official ones. The "many white" people were some half-dozen newspaper reporters, whose articles doubtless were partly written when they came. "Old Si" in his spectacles was prominently ...

— Henry Ossian Flipper, The Colored Cadet at West Point • Henry Ossian Flipper

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