Definition of distortion in English:

distortion

noun

mass noun

1The action of distorting or the state of being distorted.
‘the virus causes distortion of the leaves’
count noun ‘deliberate distortions of pitch and timbre’
- ‘This helps avoid damage, data loss or distortion.’
- ‘Birch intentionally warps perspective and depth in a way that brings to mind jazz music and its deliberate distortion of pitch and timbre.’
- ‘Acceptable levels of distortion are dependent upon the solver being used.’
- ‘The optical quality of the medium makes this fidelity possible by minimizing distortion.’
- ‘Drop distortion should not occur in the Space Station's low gravity environment, and the drops can be held on strings.’
- ‘The real challenge, then, is to be able to correct for distortion between the template and wafer.’
- ‘A fast pixel response helps eliminate ‘ghosting’ and distortion often seen on LCD monitors with slower response times.’
- ‘Other impairments include single frequency intermodulation distortion, impulse noise, co-channel interference and ghosting.’
- ‘Thickness is not an entirely free parameter, though; overly thin components suffer from poor flatness or transmitted wavefront distortion.’
- ‘This gives rise to inter-modulation distortion and clipping noises.’
- ‘The head-end BDA is a high gain amplifier with very low distortion characteristics.’
- ‘Recently, researchers have proposed a set of approaches that use different techniques to correct perspective distortion.’
- ‘There is no curvature, thus distortion is eliminated.’
- ‘Another important consideration is minimizing distortion.’
- ‘Though the picture may show distortion, the video quality is generally good; the sound is even better.’
- ‘This can cause audible distortion in the sound.’
- ‘But some tweeter domes made of traditional materials such as aluminium are susceptible to distortion at high frequencies.’
- ‘This added physical distortion of the lens, however, adds aberration.’
- ‘The standoff can provide a vent to prevent pressure in the gap from causing distortion or damage.’
- ‘Circuit bandwidth reduction, attenuation distortion, non-linear distortion and noise also can lower the values.’
warp, twist, contortion, bend, buckle, deformation, deformity, curve, curvature, malformation, disfigurement, crookedness
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1. 1.1count noun A distorted form or part.
  ‘a distortion in the eye's shape or structure’
  ‘The Cambridge researchers found that 70% of melanoma cases were due to distortions in the B-RAF gene.’
  ‘Equally, Shakespeare's distortions of history, to which Miles occasionally refers, are, in and of themselves, important.’
  ‘Dr Thomas said her frailty and distortion in her back contributed to pneumonia, causing her death.’
  ‘Such distortions turn dangerous zealots into icons.’
  ‘And, despite your distortions of the truth, once again, Boingboing has never claimed they are a source for hard news on their blog.’
  ‘It creates needless distortions in the market.’
  ‘From the mid-1880s he began to use violent colour and linear distortions to express the most elemental emotions of fear, love, and hatred.’
  ‘This has, I have noted, involved some rather ludicrous distortions of evidence as well as grand extrapolations from limited bases of data.’
  ‘Henderson was a master of playful and sinister distortions, cleverly achieved in the darkroom.’
2The action of giving a misleading account or impression.
‘we're fed up with the media's continuing distortion of our issues’
- ‘Their policies have to deal with the real world of interest groups, elections and media distortion.’
- ‘If we cannot establish first that there are distortions and perversions, then this fundamental project is a non-starter.’
- ‘It is an epic of distortion and evasion and contradiction and misleading rhetorical ploys.’
- ‘In Australia, cinema-goers get to watch a McDonald's ad arguing that the film they are about to see is full of misleading distortions.’
- ‘I don't need to lead you through the thickets of distortion, deceit, and self-puffery here.’
- ‘The demographic distortions of gender bias are thought to have been greater in China because of the country's one-child policy.’
- ‘Relevance was clearly a larger issue than political distortion.’
- ‘These involve both factual distortions and misrepresentations of the Geneva Convention on POWs.’
- ‘How can anyone accept blatant half-truths, lies and distortion of history?’
- ‘Falsehood and distortion are their stock and trade.’
- ‘It is hard to imagine carelessness, incompetence, prejudice, distortion, falsehood and unfairness being put to better use.’
- ‘Their contribution is smear, distortion, abusive emotionalism and condemnation without engagement.’
- ‘But the media echo chamber guarantees further distortion.’
- ‘I have to give a speech next week on media deceit and distortion, and when I saw this very same paper I thought, great!’
- ‘In writing about the history of American foreign policy, one must try to avoid perpetuating distortions and perversions of language.’
- ‘There are also biases and distortions in the written word.’
- ‘Do you gentlemen find that an amazing kind of distortion and deceptive piece of reasoning?’
- ‘These policies are then justified by unprecedented distortions and misrepresentations.’
- ‘And it will sweep away, once and for all, the web of distortion and deceit that poisons this debate.’
- ‘Under the microscope it turns out to be a collection of prejudices masquerading as arguments and distortions dressed up to look like facts.’
misrepresentation, perversion, twisting, falsification, misreporting, misstatement, manipulation
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3Change in the form of an electrical signal or sound wave during processing.
- ‘For example, distortion of sound is related to the length of the sound.’
- ‘In this paper Heaviside gave, for the first time, the conditions necessary to transmit a signal without distortion.’
- ‘This can cause audible distortion in the sound.’
- ‘These distortion products become increasingly important as the two frequencies approach one another.’
- ‘The technique means that less power is needed for higher bandwidths and helps out distortion.’
- ‘Thickness is not an entirely free parameter, though; overly thin components suffer from poor flatness or transmitted wavefront distortion.’
- ‘He discovered that a sound stimulus entering the inner ear causes a wave-like distortion to propagate along the basilar membrane.’
- ‘The head-end BDA is a high gain amplifier with very low distortion characteristics.’
- ‘Even in clear skies, however, atmospheric distortion is a challenge.’
- ‘A deep trench which creates a moat around each transistor to isolate it from its neighbours lowers distortion.’
- ‘Seagate's ST1 Series differs from other hard drives because it is designed to compensate for the vibrations and harmonic distortion caused by such high-motion activities.’
- ‘Personalised binaural audio is different from stereo, however, because it includes the subtle distortions to the sound caused by the effect of the head and ear shapes of the listener.’
- ‘These results show that the mechanical properties of hair bundles at high sound levels do not generate significant harmonic distortion.’