Search the Dictionary

Twisted, or twisted together. "A contorted chain of icicles." Massinger.

A contorted expression, as of the face. [R.] 'Gainst nature armed by gravity, His features too in buckle see. Churchill.

gether; to turn awry; to bend; to distort; to wrest. The vertebral arteries are variously contorted. Ray. Kant contorted the term category from the proper meaning of attributed. Sir W. Hamilton.

nto curis or ringlets, as hair; to grow in curls or spirals, as a vine; to be crinkled or contorted; to have a curly appearance; as, leaves lie curled on the ground. Thou seest it [hair] will not curl by nature. Shak.

f the bowel, in which the process of digestion is practically completed. It is narrow and contorted, and consists of three parts, the duodenum, jejunum, and ileum.

A contorted knot in wood; a crossgrained protuberance; a nodule; a boss or projection.

Overlapping; contorted; convolute; -- applied primarily, in botany, to two opposite leaves, each of which has one edge overlapping the nearest edge of the other, and secondarily to a circle of several leaves or petals which thus overlap.

era of the family Serpulidæ. They secrete a calcareous tube, which is usually irregularly contorted, but is sometimes spirally coiled. The worm has a wreath of plumelike and often bright-colored gills around its head, and usually an operculum to close the aperture of its tube when it retracts.

A variety of anhydrite composed of contorted plates fancied to resemble pieces of tripe.

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.

Contorted; crooked spirally; subjected to torsion; hence, perverted. Twisted curve (Geom.), a curve of double curvature. See Plane curve, under Curve. -- Twisted surface (Geom.), a surface described by a straight line moving according to any law whatever, yet so that the consecutive positions of the line shall not be…

but later in life the whorls become separate, and the shell is often irregularly bent and contorted like a worm tube.