Distortion

How to spell distortion

10 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce distortion

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does distortion mean?

1. nounA twisting or altering of something out of its true shape, sound, or meaning.

Distortion in a sentence

• The cheap speakers added a harsh distortion to the music.

• The report contained a serious distortion of the original figures.

Where does distortion come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word traces back to the Latin verb distorquere, which combined dis-, meaning 'apart' or 'thoroughly', with torquere, meaning 'to twist'. From the past participle came the Latin noun distortio, literally a twisting out of shape. English adopted the word in the early 1500s, first describing the physical twisting or contorting of a body or object and soon extending to the figurative twisting of facts, truth, or sound. The torquere root is surprisingly productive in English, sitting inside relatives such as 'torture', 'torque', 'contort', and 'retort', all of which carry that same idea of twisting. Remembering that the middle of the word is built on 'tort' (a twist) helps keep the spelling steady, and the ending is the common -tion that turns the action into a noun.

How the word is built

• dis- (apart, thoroughly)
• tort (twist)
• -ion (noun-forming suffix)