What's the difference between contort and writhe?

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.

Writhe


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To twist; to turn; now, usually, to twist or turn so as to distort; to wring.
  • (v. t.) To wrest; to distort; to pervert.
  • (v. t.) To extort; to wring; to wrest.
  • (v. i.) To twist or contort the body; to be distorted; as, to writhe with agony. Also used figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) flexion, stretch, rolling, startle, jumping (stepping), and writhing.
  • (2) Writhing response was more influenced after systemic administration of drugs while hot plate latencies was not.
  • (3) For the final three visible minutes, Lockett writhed, groaned, attempted to lift himself off the gurney and tried to speak, despite a doctor having declared him unconscious.
  • (4) Both tonazocine and zenazocine were antinociceptive in writhing tests and in the i.a.
  • (5) administered DPDYN were determined in two nociceptive tests, involving thermal cutaneous (tail-flick) and chemical visceral (AcOH-induced writhing) stimuli, in which mu and kappa receptors are known to be activated differentially.
  • (6) administered Asn-Ala-Gly-Ala (NAGA), a partial sequence of beta-lipotropin, was investigated using the tail-pressure, hot-plate and phenylbenzoquinone (PBQ)-induced writhing tests in mice.
  • (7) injection of histidyl-proline diketopiperazine [cyclo (His-Pro)], an active metabolite of thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) in mice produced an antinociceptive effect in a dose-dependent manner as measured in four antinociceptive tests; tail-pressure, tail-flick, hot-plate and acetic acid writhing.
  • (8) The results obtained were as follows: (1) In the analgesic effects, RIII and R97 inhibited markedly the acetic acid-induced writhing in mice, but in reducing pain induced by heat, R111 and R97 showed negative results.
  • (9) BW A4C and BW A797C had little or no effect on carrageenin-induced hyperalgesia in rats or phenyl-benzoquinone-induced writhing in mice.
  • (10) injection and was still observable 4 hr after injection, demonstrating a time course similar to that of the antinociceptive effect of CRF in the writhing test.
  • (11) On the contrary, latencies in hot plate test were more affected than the writhing response after intracerebroventricular administration.
  • (12) This compound, when administered orally, was equipotent to morphine in protecting against mouse writhing.
  • (13) ICI 174864 (10 micrograms icv) attenuated acetic acid induced writhing in mice.
  • (14) A 6-year old girl, the 3rd case, developed episodes of opisthotonous, upward rolling of the eyeballs, protrusions of the tongue, intermittent writhing movements of the upper limbs, and drowsiness following the ingestion of 6 tablets of chloroquine sulfate for suspected diagnosis of malaria.
  • (15) Decrement of spontaneous movement, inhibition of writhing, prolongation of hexobarbital-induced hypnosis, muscle relaxation, inhibition of acetic acid-induced capillary permeability, hypothermia, antipyretic effect in mice; excitation of respiration in rabbits; nerve blocking action in the isolated sciatic nerve of frogs; cardiotonic effect in the isolated atria of guinea pigs; contraction of the isolated ileum of rabbits and guinea pigs; contraction of the aorta of guinea pigs; and relaxation of the isolated trachea of guinea pigs were common properties observed after separate application of CB and DT.
  • (16) SST antagonist and cysteamine produced a significant analgesia in the writhing test but had no effect in the hot plate and tail pinch test.
  • (17) Similar results were obtained by acetic acid writhing tests.
  • (18) In the kaolin-induced writhing response in mice, which is shown to be mainly dependent on the action of bradykinin, T-614 reduced not only the writhing frequency but also the peritoneal levels of bradykinin in a dose-dependent manner.
  • (19) When injected i.p., PGI2, carbacyclin and iloprost (agonists at the PGI2 receptor) induced writhing.
  • (20) When analgesic action was tested by the writhing and Haffner's methods in mice, the compound revealed a more potent activity than did mepirizole and aminopyrine.