[f. L. contort- ppl. stem of contorquēre, f. con- + torquēre to twist.]
1. trans. To twist, twist together or round itself; to draw awry; to distort greatly by twisting.
1622. [see CONTORTED].
1715. Cheyne, Philos. Princ. Relig., I. (ed. 2), 65. Air seems to consist of Spires contorted into small Spheres, through the Interstices of which, the Particles of Light may freely pass.
1756. Amory, Buncle (1770), I. 193. These … fleshy fibres are contorted and bound about with … spiral ramifications … of the nerves.
1846. Hawthorne, Mosses, I. i. 10. The variety of grotesque shapes into which apple-trees contort themselves.
1852–9. Todd, Cycl. Anat., IV. 948/1. The cord is thereby contorted into a spiral.
1855. Bain, Senses & Int., II. ii. § 2 (1864), 121. The features are violently contorted.
1879. Lockyer, Elem. Astron., iii. 79. The sedimentary rocks have been … bent, contorted, or twisted to an enormous extent.
fig. 1836–7. Sir W. Hamilton, Metaph. (1877), I. xi. 197. Contorted from their established signification.
1864. Bowen, Logic, vii. 192. Both halves of the reasoning are contorted.
† 2. To hurl forth as a missile or argument. Obs.
c. 1562. Abp. Parker, Def. Priests Marriages, 165. For it may be well verified of you that ye contort to another: He that is once ouer his shoes, forceth not afterward how deepe he wade in the myer.
