Misrepresent, misinterpret, falsify, distort, warp.

It was the unbroken cord between the twain That drew her ever to the ocean marge; Though to her feverous phantasy, unfit, 'Mid the tumultuous brood of shapes distort, To see one simple form, it was the fear Of fixed destiny, unavoidable, And not the longing for the well-known face, That drew her, drew her to the urgent sea.

V. distort, contort, twist, warp, wrest, writhe, make faces, deform, misshape.

V. be ugly &c adj.; look ill, grin horribly a ghastly smile, make faces. render ugly &c adj.; deface; disfigure, defigure^; distort &c 23; blemish &c (injure) 659; soil &c (render unclean) 653.

Thus did they distort and misinterpret the words he had uttered, the instructions he had given and the parables by which he had illustrated his instructions, giving them the semblance of crimes.

Was it certain that the miracle whereby the data presented to our faculties conformed to them would be a standing one? Had not Kant himself as good as admitted that our faculties might distort reality instead of making it intelligible?

Give me no word which my folly can distort into a ray of hope, unless you wish to drive me mad.

And be it remembered, that such universal cravings are more than fancies; they are indications of deep spiritual wants, which, unless we supply them with the good food which God has made for them, will supply themselves with poison indications of spiritual faculties, which it is as wicked to stunt or distort by mis-education as it is to maim our own limbs or stupefy our understanding.

We ought not, however, to distort the truth of biography or to corrupt criticism, from a personal wish to make more out of his feeling than fact and probability warrant.

"One advantage," says Mr. Southey, "this metre assuredly possesses; the dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it with a prose mouth, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible."

And since glass globes refract the light irregularly and magnify and distort whatever is within them, we shall find an advantage in having the sides of the aquarium parallel and the form rectangular.

The time is, I hope, at hand, when those who are most in earnest will feel that therefore they are most bound to be justwhen they will confess the exceeding wickedness of the desire to distort or suppress a fact, or misrepresent a characterwhen they will ask as solemnly to be delivered from the temptation to this, as to any crime which is punished by law.

" "Ah, you distort my words.

But I am confident that these authors teach erroneously; that their use of indicative forms for mere suppositions that are contrary to the facts, is positively ungrammatical; and that the potential imperfect is less elegant, in such instances, than the simple subjunctive, which they reject or distort.

It is, moreover, far from edifying that the personal element should so frequently distort political discussion.

It undoubtedly injured them exactly in proportion as the philanthropic motive led the writers to distort or to exaggerate the truth.

It is not the business of those who are enlightened to protest against conventional things, unless those conventions obscure and distort the truth.

The old queen had been narrow, dull-witted, bigoted; an unhappy woman, a miserable wife, plagued with sickness, plagued, above all, with a conscience whose mission seems to have been to distort everything that came under its cognizance.

Here be we assembled: let us, then, be guided by our wisdom and our good faith to act in such sort that hatred stifle not reason, and affection distort not truth.

To pronounce incorrectly is to call it incompletely into life and formto distort and injure it, and yourself with it.

Therefore, while to suppress a portion of the truth is at times wise and kind, to distort it, or misstate facts, is never needed and never excusable.

Around his head, like vipers all distort, His locks shook, heavy-laden, at each stride.

But acids unmixed will distort the face and torture the palate; and he that has no other qualities than penetration and asperity, he whose constant employment is detection and censure, who looks only to find faults, and speaks only to punish them, will soon be dreaded, hated and avoided.

By this attack on my good faith, and by pretending that my withdrawal of the passage is of serious importance, he distracts the reader's attention from the argument there in hand (p. 79), which is, not what are my sentiments and judgements, but whether he had a right to dissolve and distort my chain of reasoning (see I. above) while affecting to quote me, and pretending that I gave nothing but assertion.

But so little did she know of herself, so futile was her struggle in the dark with only sudden flashes to blind her and distort all she saw, that with nothing to shape that moulding kernel it would shrink and wither, and in a few years she would be but a polished shell, perfect of proportion, hollow at the core.