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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Twisting

Twisting \Twist"ing\, a. & n. from Twist.

Twisting pair. (Kinematics) See under Pair, n., 7.

Twisting

Twist \Twist\, v. t. [imp. & p. p. Twisted; p. pr. & vb. n. Twisting.] [OE. twisten, AS. twist a rope, as made of two (twisted) strands, fr. twi- two; akin to D. twist a quarrel, dissension, G. zwist, Dan. & Sw. tvist, Icel. twistr the deuce in cards, tvistr distressed. See Twice, Two.]

  1. To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.

    Twist it into a serpentine form.
    --Pope.

  2. Hence, to turn from the true form or meaning; to pervert; as, to twist a passage cited from an author.

  3. 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.

  4. To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts. ``Longing to twist bays with that ivy.''
    --Waller.

    There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
    --T. Burnet.

  5. To wind into; to insinuate; -- used reflexively; as, avarice twists itself into all human concerns.

  6. 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.
    --Shak.

  7. Hence, to form as if by winding one part around another; to wreathe; to make up.

    Was it not to this end That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
    --Shak.

  8. To form into a thread from many fine filaments; as, to twist wool or cotton.

Wiktionary
twisting
  1. Having many twists n. (form of gerund twist English) v

  2. (present participle of twist English)

WordNet
twisting
  1. adj. having a twisting or snake-like or worm-like motion; "squirming boys"; "wiggly worms"; "writhing snakes" [syn: squirming, wiggling, wiggly, wriggling, wriggly, writhing]

  2. marked by repeated turns and bends; "a tortuous road up the mountain"; "winding roads are full of surprises"; "had to steer the car down a twisty track" [syn: tortuous, twisty, winding]

  3. n. the act of distorting something so it seems to mean something it was not intended to mean [syn: distortion, overrefinement, straining, torture]

  4. the act of rotating rapidly; "he gave the crank a spin"; "it broke off after much twisting" [syn: spin, twirl, twist, whirl]

Usage examples of "twisting".

I could feel the inked lines of my own accreditation tat twisting and tingling under the skin of my left cheek, the emerald set at the top of the twisted caduceus probably flashing.

He began to take little drops of glass from the furnace on the end of a thin iron, and he drew them out into thick threads and heated them again and laid them on the body of the ampulla, twisting and turning each bit till he had no more, and forming a regular raised design on the surface.

She was bucking against him, her head twisting against the sheets of the bed, arching desperately, begging now for release.

Gradually, the fire died down, and the music softened with it, as the dome turned Into the night sky, an astrodome of twisting constellations.

The bedin held me still without effort, his fingers twisting whatever he had put into me, the object persisting in its mild burning sensation.

He felt as if his own soul had been reduced into something piteousa bedraggled, sweat-smeared rat, trapped within a rock-fall, twisting and squirming through cracks in a desperate search for a place where the pressurethe vast, shifting weightrelented.

Twisting, she sagged to the ground, bedraggled, alone in an alley of dirt.

Once Burl had gotten used to the odd visual effect, which was like gazing into the twisting heat rays rising from an overheated oven, he saw that there was a small flat region between the mountains.

Two detours though twisting alleyways led them to a vacant, overgrown area where Flax plumped himself down on an overturned discarded tub.

Once a man even reached the Chesaux de Frise, he swept at the sabre blades with a musket, bellowing defiance, and then he was hit by an unseen French infantryman and he fell, twisting like a rag doll, down the slope and the French jeered him and poured fire down.

The hortator was an even grimmer specimen, a big Greek with a twisting white scar on his jaw.

Over the years he came to resemble a high hill covered in grass and shrubs and stunted trees, with here and there a portion of scale showing through, and the colossal head entirely emergent, unclothed by vegetation, engaging everything that passed before him with huge, slit-pupiled golden eyes, exerting a malefic influence over the events that flowed around him, twisting them into shapes that conformed to the cruel designs his discarnate intellect delighted in the weaving of and profited his vengeful will.

As it was, the medivacs had to come in low and twisting around the base of the mountains to avoid being hit by bandit fire, and the wounded carried more than a mile to the dust-offs.

Quickly, it reached out and bound the misted form of the Grimpond, weaving and twisting with its magic.

And the moaning sound that still filled the auditorium must be the moorage webbing, twisting beneath the temp.