distortion

UK/dɪsˈtɔːʃən/

nounB2+Common in everyday speech and writing · #7,727 of 15,258leans written

Other forms: distortions

Distortion is a twisting of shape, sound or truth out of true. Optical distortion, guitar distortion, a distortion of the facts.

In sound it is unwanted almost everywhere and deliberately sought on an electric guitar, where the whole style rests on it. In a lens it is the bending of straight lines near the edge of the frame. Of an argument it means a misrepresentation.

Definitions of distortion

1noundistortionA twisting of shape, sound or truth out of true.B2+
“The newspaper's report was a distortion of what the minister actually said.”

distortion is a twisting.

Where it comes from

Latin distortio comes from distorquere, to twist apart — dis plus torquere, to twist.

Latin
distortio
English, today
distortion

Latin distortio, from distortus.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

distortion in the wild

In signal processing, distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic) of a signal.
Distortion
In some situations, however, distortion may be desirable.
Distortion
Extension or wide-angle distortion can be seen in images shot from close using a wide-angle lens (with an angle of view wider than a normal lens).
Perspective distortion
IMD is only distinct from harmonic distortion in that the stimulus signal is different.
Intermodulation
The same nonlinear system will produce both total harmonic distortion (with a solitary sine wave input) and IMD (with more complex tones).
Intermodulation

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

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