contortion
1
7.1
- noun
- /kənˈtɔrʃən/
- In the performance, the dancer executed a flawless contortion that left the audience in awe.
Examples
-
So we're back to the EPA's contortion of classifying natural gas combined cycle as an emission-reduction system adequately demonstrated for coal power plants.
Blog text (8) -
Each piece looks as if a giant hand has twisted it into a bizarre contortion.
Fiction book (1996) -
All this, all the subterfuge and contortion, only to call his wife by his mistress's name.
Fiction book (1997) -
And who can imagine and tell of all the marvelous and strange contortions of the body's members?
Academic text (2002) -
Max was only used to watching from the bar the ridiculous effect it had on the trim bodies and the graceless contortions.
Fiction book (1995) -
His heavy, bassy voice gently guides them through their contortions.
Blog text (28) -
Here, phantoms of the soul disperse until only contortions, breathlessness, and sweat remain.
Fiction book (1993) -
Even in flying by, one sees flashes of fantastic gargoyle-like resemblances to persons one has known, caricatured into impossible contortions, as if by some medieval humorousness.
Blog text (22) -
The statue's design features a dramatic contortion of the figure's limbs, creating a sense of movement.
-
The artist captured the contortion of the tree branches as they twisted under the weight of the snow.
Synonyms
7
5.9
A change in the shape of an object that makes it look or work worse
5
8.1
A force that twists an object so it turns around its axis
1
5.5
A bent, not straight shape like a picture frame or tree trunk
1
7.8
Bending or twisting of a thing so it loses its original shape
1
5.9
Something that no longer looks like its original form after bending or heat
Antonyms
How Twisted
Surface Forms
Morphology
Etymology
Contortion comes from Latin con- 'together' and torquere 'to twist', a root you also find in words such as distort and torque. So a contortion is a twisted or deformed shape that happens when something is bent out of its normal form.