What's the difference between contort and twist?

Contort


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To twist, or twist together; to turn awry; to bend; to distort; to wrest.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Obama warned “a contorted reading of the statute” could mean that “millions of people who are obtaining insurance currently with subsidies, suddenly aren’t getting those subsidies, many of them can’t afford it”.
  • (2) The term dystonia was introduced by Oppenheim and Vogt in 1911 to describe the relatively slow, sustained, frequently forceful contorting movements involving striatal muscles.
  • (3) The most famous image of suffering in the Renaissance was an ancient statue dug up in 1506 of the pagan priest Laocoön being strangled by snakes , his face a contorted image of pure suffering.
  • (4) For in situ hybridization on cytogenetic preparations, the results are excellent, but the procedure is contorted and the probe use is increased.
  • (5) Sprawling across 110 hectares on the outskirts of Milan, this crazed collage of undulating tents, tilting green walls and parametrically-contorted lumps can mean only one thing: Expo 2015, latest in a long and controversial tradition of “world’s fairs”, has landed.
  • (6) He had also grown disillusioned with his own role as a propagandist, his contorted attempt to distinguish between 'honest' and 'dishonest' propaganda evidently having failed.
  • (7) Take out the contortions, exaggerations and outright lies from the standard Trump riff – and you have next to nothing.
  • (8) Putin’s face has contorted and smoothed out so much that it’s at times unrecognisable.
  • (9) The substance of his argument was contorted and at times contradictory, but as a leader rather than an individual he had no choice but to be opaque as he sought to keep his party united.
  • (10) Thus it increased the bulging of endothelial cells and contortion of their nuclei, and further increased the number of surface protrusions and the subendothelial space.
  • (11) Since then, Putin's face has contorted and smoothed out so much that it's at times unrecognisable.
  • (12) We investigated the participation of a sympathetic component in the abdominal contortions induced by intraperitoneal injection of 0.6% acetic acid in the mouse.
  • (13) I was ashamed of having married so early, ashamed of how strange and singular my marriage had been, ashamed of my guilt about it, ashamed of the years of moral contortions I'd undergone on my way to divorce, ashamed of my sexual inexperience, ashamed of what an outrageous and judgmental mother I had, ashamed of being a bleeding and undefended person instead of a tower of remoteness and command and intellect like DeLillo or Pynchon, ashamed to be writing a book that seemed to want to turn on the question of whether an outrageous midwestern mother will get one last Christmas at home with her family.
  • (14) Suddenly, free from contortions of caution, they can bring us the simple truth.
  • (15) There were no statistically significant correlations to any of the following parameters: complication of pregnancy by toxaemia, duration of labour, presence of umbilical cord contortion, perinatal distress, Apgar index, mode of delivery, body weight, body length, ratio of weight to length, and blood glucose.
  • (16) On addition of ATP and other hydrolysable nucleotides the microtubule bundle contorts into a helical configuration, a property we have called 'corkscrewing', before straightening again.
  • (17) Signs of infection in 20 snakes included subcutaneous "lumps," violent contortions, and bloody exudate, apparently from the nares.
  • (18) Jo Appleby, the bones expert who excavated the skeleton and has worked on it for months, said it was contorted by scoliosis, which set in some time after he was 10, from an unknown cause.
  • (19) Suddenly, the election campaign is awash with the main parties' contorted version of political geography: proof, once you've got through the usual fog of Westminster language, that 13 years of Labour government have left the UK's regional, national – and fundamentally economic – divisions all too intact.
  • (20) I didn't take much notice at the time, but just writing that sentence makes my face contort with outrage.

Twist


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
  • (v. t.) Hence, to turn from the true form or meaning; to pervert; as, to twist a passage cited from an author.
  • (v. t.) 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.
  • (v. t.) To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
  • (v. t.) To wind into; to insinuate; -- used reflexively; as, avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
  • (v. t.) 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.
  • (v. t.) Hence, to form as if by winding one part around another; to wreathe; to make up.
  • (v. t.) To form into a thread from many fine filaments; as, to twist wool or cotton.
  • (v. i.) To be contorted; to writhe; to be distorted by torsion; to be united by winding round each other; to be or become twisted; as, some strands will twist more easily than others.
  • (v. i.) To follow a helical or spiral course; to be in the form of a helix.
  • (n.) The act of twisting; a contortion; a flexure; a convolution; a bending.
  • (n.) The form given in twisting.
  • (n.) That which is formed by twisting, convoluting, or uniting parts.
  • (n.) A cord, thread, or anything flexible, formed by winding strands or separate things round each other.
  • (n.) A kind of closely twisted, strong sewing silk, used by tailors, saddlers, and the like.
  • (n.) A kind of cotton yarn, of several varieties.
  • (n.) A roll of twisted dough, baked.
  • (n.) A little twisted roll of tobacco.
  • (n.) One of the threads of a warp, -- usually more tightly twisted than the filling.
  • (n.) A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together; as, Damascus twist.
  • (n.) The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
  • (n.) A beverage made of brandy and gin.
  • (v. t.) A twig.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Aberrant forms (elongated and twisted) in the vacuole and double virions in the plasma membrane were observed as early as 65 h after infection.
  • (2) Electron microscopy shows that at neutral pH, CEA particles consist of homogeneous, morphologically distinctive, twisted rod-shaped particles, about 9 X 40 nm.
  • (3) Rapid swelling of the knee following a blow or twisting injury is considered a significant injury.
  • (4) Intermolecular contacts occur in both oligomers in the minor groove: in the B form through twisted guanine-guanine hydrogen bonding, and in the Z form through base-base stacking and the water network.
  • (5) Ings twisted the knee during his first training session with Klopp in charge and tests have shown the former Burnley forward ruptured an anterior cruciate ligament, meaning that a player who has just broken into England’s senior team will be out for a minimum of six months.
  • (6) Leicester looked a little sorry for themselves and, with their concentration down, United twisted the knife.
  • (7) Gowher Rizvi, chief representative of the prime minister, Sheik Hasina, told the Guardian that preparations for the forthcoming elections, were "completely on track" and that the tribunal, probing crimes committed during the 1971 war in which Bangladesh broke away from Pakistan, was about bringing justice previously denied by "the twists and turns" of the country's history.
  • (8) The base orientations are characterized by a substantial inclination and propellor twist.
  • (9) Among the non-standard postures examined were: twisting while lifting or lowering, lifting and lowering from lying, sitting, kneeling, and squatting positions, and carrying loads under conditions of constricted ceiling heights.
  • (10) A vicious feud playing out within Uzbekistan's ruling family took a new twist on Monday , when prosecutors announced that the clan's most flamboyant member faces charges of involvement in mafia-style corruption.
  • (11) The possible arrangements of molecules within the twisted ribbons have been deduced and are found to be fairly closely related.
  • (12) Idiopathic torsion dystonia (ITD) is characterized by sustained, involuntary muscle contractions, frequently causing twisting and repetitive movements or abnormal postures.
  • (13) These results indicate that the polypeptide chain, driven by energetics (nonbonded and electrostatic interactions), is folded into a typical left-handed twisted four-helix bundle with an approximately 4-fold symmetric array, as observed in most four alpha-helix proteins.
  • (14) In the mutants twist and snail, which fail to differentiate the ventrally derived mesoderm, mitoses specific to the mesoderm are absent.
  • (15) Fulham were helped by United being forced into a trio of substitutions at the interval, as Rafael succumbed to a twisted ankle, Cleverly had double vision and Evans had back trouble.
  • (16) Blockage of the balloon system was possibly caused by twisting the system to reach and pass the lesion in the branch of left circumflex coronary artery.
  • (17) In the tradition of the American author Patricia Highsmith, creator of the charming psychopath Tom Ripley, Rendell used twisting plots to expose twisted minds.
  • (18) From previous genetic and biochemical studies it was hypothesized that dorsal might be responsible for the activation of the zygotic gene twist.
  • (19) Finally, the twisted nose was treated by freeing the nasal components, straightening the bone and cartilage, and replacing them in their anatomical positions.
  • (20) It doesn’t do a lot at the moment, but there’s a lot of potential for a modern twist on board games here.