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# distortion

noun (a distortion, distortions; uncountable too); verb distort

«distortion» in the English dictionary: everyday and in Jewish tradition — its meanings, how the lessons use it, and examples, each with its tree on Mova.

## Everyday

1. Distortion is when the shape, sound or picture of something is twisted or stretched so it looks or sounds wrong. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#m1)
2. A distortion of the truth or facts is a version that changes them so they give a false idea. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#m2)
3. In music, distortion is a rough, buzzing sound effect used on electric guitars. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#m3)

### In the lessons

In science: lenses, curved mirrors and water cause distortion of light (a funhouse mirror, a straw looking bent). In media and politics lessons: a distortion of facts is a warning sign of propaganda or misleading charts. Phrases: a distortion of the truth, sound distortion, image distortion.

### Examples

- The funhouse mirror caused a funny distortion of our faces. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x1)
- The water made a distortion so the pencil looked bent. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x2)
- The loud speaker gave the music a crackly distortion. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x3)
- Saying I broke it on purpose is a distortion of what happened. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x4)
- A graph that does not start at zero can create a distortion. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x5)
- The guitarist turned on the distortion pedal. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x6)
- Heat over the road made a wobbly distortion in the air. [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/#x7)

### Note

Countable for single cases (a distortion of the facts) and uncountable for the effect (too much distortion). A distortion is not the same as a lie: it can bend true facts. In maths charts, a stretched or cut axis is a classic distortion — read the numbers, not the bar heights.

## In Jewish tradition

In science: lenses, curved mirrors and water cause distortion of light (a funhouse mirror, a straw looking bent). In media and politics lessons: a distortion of facts is a warning sign of propaganda or misleading charts. Phrases: a distortion of the truth, sound distortion, image distortion.

### Examples

- All the other commentaries mentioned above, together with all quotations of other expounders of the same book, contain nothing but a medley of arbitrary, mystical explanations and sophistical distortions of scriptural verses, astrological notions, oriental (Sefer Yetzirah, Kalisch 1877) [tree →](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/judaism/D/distortion/#x1)

### Note

Countable for single cases (a distortion of the facts) and uncountable for the effect (too much distortion). A distortion is not the same as a lie: it can bend true facts. In maths charts, a stretched or cut axis is a classic distortion — read the numbers, not the bar heights.

## On Mova

- [Trees and pragmatics of «distortion» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/school/D/distortion/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«distortion» in the school dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/school/w/distortion.html) on Mova free.
- [Trees and pragmatics of «distortion» in the Judaism dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/dictionaries/judaism/D/distortion/): every meaning and example parsed by Mova, with its dependency tree and frames.
- [«distortion» in the Judaism dictionary](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/dictionaries/judaism/w/distortion.html) on Mova free.