DISTORT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does distort mean? 

• DISTORT (verb)
  The verb DISTORT has 5 senses:

1. make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story

2. form into a spiral shape

3. twist and press out of shape

4. affect as in thought or feeling

5. alter the shape of (something) by stress

  Familiarity information: DISTORT used as a verb is common.

 Dictionary entry details 

• DISTORT (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they distort    ... he / she / it distorts   
Past simple: distorted   
Past participle: distorted   
-ing form: distorting   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

distort; falsify; garble; warp

Hypernyms (to "distort" is one way to...):

belie; misrepresent (represent falsely)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "distort"):

mangle; murder; mutilate (alter so as to make unrecognizable)

Sentence frame:

Somebody ----s something

Derivation:

distortion (the mistake of misrepresenting the facts)

distortion (the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean)

distortion (a change (usually undesired) in the waveform of an acoustic or analog electrical signal; the difference between two measurements of a signal (as between the input and output signal))

Sense 2

Meaning:

Form into a spiral shape

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

distort; twine; twist

Context example:

The cord is all twisted

Hypernyms (to "distort" is one way to...):

change form; change shape; deform (assume a different shape or form)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "distort"):

wrench; wring (twist and compress, as if in pain or anguish)

contort; deform; distort; wring (twist and press out of shape)

entangle; mat; snarl; tangle (twist together or entwine into a confusing mass)

enlace; entwine; interlace; intertwine; lace; twine (spin, wind, or twist together)

spin (work natural fibers into a thread)

interweave; weave (interlace by or as if by weaving)

Sentence frames:

Something ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Something ----s something
Somebody ----s something PP

Derivation:

distortion (a shape resulting from distortion)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Twist and press out of shape

Classified under:

Verbs of touching, hitting, tying, digging

Synonyms:

contort; deform; distort; wring

Hypernyms (to "distort" is one way to...):

distort; twine; twist (form into a spiral shape)

Verb group:

wrench; wring (twist and compress, as if in pain or anguish)

wring (twist, squeeze, or compress in order to extract liquid)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "distort"):

morph (change shape as via computer animation)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

Derivation:

distortion (a shape resulting from distortion)

Sense 4

Meaning:

Affect as in thought or feeling

Classified under:

Verbs of telling, asking, ordering, singing

Synonyms:

color; colour; distort; tinge

Context example:

The sadness tinged his life

Hypernyms (to "distort" is one way to...):

affect; bear on; bear upon; impact; touch; touch on (have an effect upon)

Sentence frame:

Something ----s something

Sense 5

Meaning:

Alter the shape of (something) by stress

Classified under:

Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.

Synonyms:

deform; distort; strain

Context example:

His body was deformed by leprosy

Hypernyms (to "distort" is one way to...):

form; shape (give shape or form to)

Troponyms (each of the following is one way to "distort"):

jaundice (distort adversely)

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s something
Something ----s something

 Context examples 

It is characterized by the presence of a distorted epithelium, inflammation, and fibrosis.

(Colon Inflammatory Polyp, NCI Thesaurus)

They discovered that covering the flakes with a nanolayered coating of titanium disulfide (TiS2)—a material that does not Peierls distort—would stabilize the VS2 flakes and improve their performance within the battery.

(Creating Better Lithium-Ion Batteries Made Possible with New Discovery, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)

A condition in which a sense, especially touch, is distorted.

(Dysesthesia, NCI Dictionary)

A finding indicating the presence of Barrett esophagus in which the crypts are preserved or mildly distorted.

(Low Grade Dysplasia in Barrett Esophagus, NCI Thesaurus)

She was there, lifeless and inanimate, thrown across the bed, her head hanging down and her pale and distorted features half covered by her hair.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

Like static on a telephone line, peripheral nerve disorders distort or interrupt the messages between the brain and the rest of the body.

(Peripheral Nerve Disorders, NIH: National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke)

The researchers then directed high-frequency sound waves over the device, causing it to vibrate and distort, like a tiny earthquake.

(Quantum state of single electrons controlled by ‘surfing’ on sound waves, University of Cambridge)

Here was a face with flashing eyes and distorted features, a face convulsed with hatred and with the mad joy of gratified revenge.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Some are distorted like a funhouse mirror through a warping-of-space phenomenon first predicted by Einstein a century ago.

(NASA’s Hubble Looks to the Final Frontier, NASA)

A magnetic field would distort the flow of incoming material close to the neutron star.

(NuSTAR Helps Find Universe's Brightest Pulsars, NASA)