(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.
Wry
Definition:
(v. t.) To cover.
(superl.) Turned to one side; twisted; distorted; as, a wry mouth.
(superl.) Hence, deviating from the right direction; misdirected; out of place; as, wry words.
(superl.) Wrested; perverted.
(v. i.) To twist; to writhe; to bend or wind.
(v. i.) To deviate from the right way; to go away or astray; to turn side; to swerve.
(a.) To twist; to distort; to writhe; to wrest; to vex.
Example Sentences:
(1) When I commiserate about the overnight flight that brought them here, Linney gives a wry grimace.
(2) The image was widely shared online and taken as a wry comment on pictures of Donald Trump’s all-male Oval Office team.
(3) Putin could have been forgiven for allowing himself a wry grin, as another court comprehensively trashed Berezovsky's reputation.
(4) No wry observations or whoops-a-daisy trombones to subvert the conceit for period lolz.
(5) She frequently talks about herself as an object of wry or amused discovery.
(6) It was described as the "Twitter revolution" , but almost a year on from Iran's disputed presidential elections, during which the use of social media by the opposition movement made headlines around the world, such claims prompt wry smiles from seasoned observers.
(7) Enigmatic and elusive, they may have named themselves after the US video director because they enjoy his work, or it may be a wry comment on something or other.
(8) Franzen did seem to have a certain sense of humour about himself, and in person has a wry, awkward charm.
(9) Coal plants are the most polluting of all power stations and the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India.
(10) The cover art for the Cranberries' Bury the Hatchet (1999) was an evocation of paranoia – a giant eye bearing down on a crouching figure – that did neither band nor artist many favours; his image for Muse's Black Holes and Revelations (2006) amounted to a thin revival of his work for the Floyd that, if you were being generous, suggested a wry comment on that band's unconvincing attempts to revive the excesses of 1970s progressive rock.
(11) He was a nice man, unpretentious and with a wry manner.
(12) The secretary of state also made a wry comparison between the bipartisan co-operation underpinning the new Afghan government and the polarised state of American domestic politics.
(13) But he is courteous, wry, insightful and very much on the left of his party.
(14) "I think I know what's to come," Chua says with a wry smile.
(15) "I don't think that Plaid Cymru can overturn world capitalism," she says, with a wry smile.
(16) "They were very happy," Wazir recalls with a wry smile.
(17) We are seeing a shift in the expansion of tree cover loss to a second tier of smaller countries that traditionally get much less attention from environmental groups.” He added: “These countries are recovering from years of civil conflicts that have made them off limits to investors who are now looking for opportunities – it is a new frontier of investments.” The WRI analysis suggests that a rapidly growing palm oil industry is one of the biggest contributors to the change.
(18) Guy Shrubsole, at Friends of the Earth, said of the WRI report: "This is a scary number of coal-fired plants being planned.
(19) The WRI report also found that, after a slight dip during the economic troubles of 2008, the global coal trade has rebounded and rose by 13% in 2010.
(20) But he is far from being a show-off: 'In fact, he comes over as a modest individual with a wry sense of humour', says a colleague.