distortion
nounUK /dɪsˈtɔːʃən/
Etymology Borrowed from Latin distortio, distortionis, from distortus.
1
An act of distorting.
2
A result of distorting.
3
A misrepresentation of the truth.
- The story he told was a bit of a distortion.
- The conscious mind refuses to admit any failure to perceive, and puts in its place a series of rationalisations which are fabrications and distortions of the real nature of things.1999 July 9, Bernard Burgoyne, “The Mind”, in The Guardian:
1 more example
- Remembering is an act of re-creation and therefore subject to distortion and fictionalization: 'real' memories become tales, and tales become 'memories'.2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, page 204:
4
Noise or other artifacts caused in the electronic reproduction of sound or music.
- This recording sounds awful due to the distortion.
5
An effect used in music, most commonly on guitars in rock or metal.
6
Engineering, Natural sciences, Optics, Physical sciences, Physics An aberration that causes magnification to change over the field of view.
- Synonyms
- deformation, disfigurement
- Derived terms
- antiferrodistortion, barrel distortion, bias distortion, bond distortion, cognitive distortion, counterdistortion, digital pre-distortion, distortional, distortionary, distortionist, distortionless, ferrodistortion, microdistortion, nondistortion, pincushion distortion, predistortion, reality distortion field, selective distortion, undistortion
- Related terms
- distort