distort

Definition

To bring something out of shape, to misshape.

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin distortum, past participle of distorqueō (“to twist, torture, distort”).

Example Sentences

• "This she did with the utmost politeness, though cold by race, and through her politeness ran a sense of what the Teutons call Duty, which would once have repelled me; but I have wandered over a great part of the world and I know it now to be a distorted kind of virtue."
• "In their articles, journalists sometimes distort the truth."

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