Twist \Twist\ (tw[i^]st), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Twisted; p. pr.
& vb. n. Twisting.] [OE. twisten, AS. twist a rope, as made
of two (twisted) strands, fr. twi- two; akin to D. twist a
quarrel, dissension, G. zwist, Dan. & Sw. tvist, Icel. tvistr
the deuce in cards, tvistr distressed. See Twice, Two.]
1. To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally;
to convolve.
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Twist it into a serpentine form. --Pope.
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2. Hence, to turn from the true form or meaning; to pervert;
as, to twist a passage cited from an author.
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3. To distort, as a solid body, by turning one part
relatively to another about an axis passing through both;
to subject to torsion; as, to twist a shaft.
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4. To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture
of parts. "Longing to twist bays with that ivy." --Waller.
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There are pillars of smoke twisted about with
wreaths of flame. --T. Burnet.
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5. To wind into; to insinuate; -- used reflexively; as,
avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
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6. To unite by winding one thread, strand, or other flexible
substance, round another; to form by convolution, or
winding separate things round each other; as, to twist
yarn or thread. --Shak.
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7. Hence, to form as if by winding one part around another;
to wreathe; to make up.
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Was it not to this end
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story? --Shak.
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8. To form into a thread from many fine filaments; as, to
twist wool or cotton.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Twisting \Twist"ing\,
a. & n. from Twist.
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Twisting pair. (Kinematics) See under Pair, n., 7.
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The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
twisting
adj 1: having a twisting or snake-like or worm-like motion;
"squirming boys"; "wiggly worms"; "writhing snakes"
[syn: squirming, wiggling, wiggly, wriggling,
wriggly, writhing]
2: marked by repeated turns and bends; "a tortuous road up the
mountain"; "winding roads are full of surprises"; "had to
steer the car down a twisty track" [syn: tortuous, twisty,
winding]
n 1: the act of distorting something so it seems to mean
something it was not intended to mean [syn: distortion,
overrefinement, straining, torture]
2: the act of rotating rapidly; "he gave the crank a spin"; "it
broke off after much twisting" [syn: spin, twirl, twist,
whirl]
WordNet (r) 2.0
173 Moby Thesaurus words for "twisting":
aberrant, aberrative, abstractionism, abuse of terms, ambages,
ambagious, anfractuosity, anfractuous, bending, braiding,
catachresis, circuitous, circuitousness, circumambages,
circumbendibus, circumlocution, circumlocutory, circumvolution,
coloring, contorting, convolution, convolutional, crinkle,
crinkling, curving, deformation, departing, desultory, deviant,
deviating, deviative, deviatory, devious, digressive, discursive,
distortion, eisegesis, enlacement, entwinement, entwining, errant,
erratic, error, exaggeration, excursive, expressionism, fabric,
false coloring, falsification, flexuose, flexuosity, flexuous,
flexuousness, garbling, gloss, hyperbole, inaccuracy, indirect,
injustice, interknitting, interlacement, interlacery, interlacing,
intertexture, interthreading, intertieing, intertwinement,
intertwining, intertwisting, interweavement, interweaving,
intorsion, involute, involuted, involution, involutional, knitting,
labyrinthine, lacing, litotes, malentendu, malobservation, mazy,
meander, meandering, meandrous, misapplication, misapprehension,
miscitation, miscoloring, misconception, misconstruction,
misdrawing, misexplanation, misexplication, misexposition,
misintelligence, misinterpretation, misjudgment, mispainting,
misquotation, misreading, misrendering, misreport,
misrepresentation, misstatement, misteaching, mistranslation,
misunderstanding, misuse of words, nonrealism, out-of-the-way,
overdrawing, overstatement, perversion, plaiting, planetary,
rambling, rivose, rivulation, rivulose, roundabout, roving,
ruffled, serpentine, shifting, sinuate, sinuation, sinuose,
sinuosity, sinuous, sinuousness, slanting, slinkiness, snakiness,
snaky, squeezing, stray, swerving, texture, tissue, torsion,
torsional, tortile, tortility, tortuosity, tortuous, tortuousness,
torturing, turning, twining, twisty, understatement, undirected,
undulation, vagrant, veering, wandering, warp and woof, warpage,
wave, waving, weave, weaving, web, weftage, whorled, winding,
wreathing, wreathlike, wreathy, wrenching, zigzag
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0
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