Word family noun distortion adjective distorted verb distort
From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishdistortdis‧tort /dɪˈstɔːt $ -ɔːrt/ ●○○ AWL verb 1 CHANGE/MAKE something DIFFERENT[intransitive, transitive] to change the appearance, sound, or shape of something so that it is strange or unclear Tall buildings can distort radio signals.2 FALSE[transitive] to report something in a way that is not completely true or correct His account was badly distorted by the press.3 [transitive] to change a situation from the way it would naturally be an expensive subsidy which distorts the market —distorted adjective His face was distorted in anger. —distortion /dɪˈstɔːʃən $ -ɔːr-/ noun [countable, uncountable] a gross distortion of the facts→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
distort• Funhouse mirrors, which are not flat, cause images to be distorted.• The engram bank becomes severely distorted by painful emotion and the areas of painful emotion be-come severely distorted by physical pain elsewhere.• These incidents were grossly distorted by police witnesses.• Some say that the President has distorted facts in order to win the election.• If the sine wave is distorted, harmonics are generated.• But we can not assume that humans would naturally or inevitably develop such distorted ideas.• For example, the beat can be distorted if the coronary arteries are not wired correctly inside the heart.• But ions can not probe non-conductors because they build up a charge on the surface, which distorts the analysis.• Journalists were accused of sensationalizing the story and distorting the facts.• A frequent tactic is to try to distort the meaning of words.• Nevertheless, to conceive of parents as utterly static in the child's psychological life is likely to distort the picture grossly.• Newspaper readers are usually given a simplified and often distorted version of events.Origin distort (1400-1500) Latin distortus, past participle of distorquere “to twist out of shape” 