Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun One who contorts, especially an acrobat capable of twisting into extraordinary positions.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun One who practises gymnastic feats requiring great suppleness of the joints and involving contorted or unnatural postures.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun One who makes or practices contortions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun An acrobat who is capable of twisting his or her body into unusual positions.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an acrobat able to twist into unusual positions

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From contortion +‎ -ist.

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Examples

  • What do you call a contortionist from the Philippines?

    Making Light: Open thread 137 2010

  • "Personally, I think one of the worst examples is the 'contortionist' - my bike is actually too big for those lockers!"

    Manchester Evening News - RSS Feed 2010

  • "Personally, I think one of the worst examples is the 'contortionist' - my bike is actually too big for those lockers!"

    Manchester Evening News - RSS Feed 2010

  • It's like every American's worst nightmare of what France must be like, a world in which a contortionist is their version of a superhero and people who sleep on the sidewalk are actually listened to as some sort of fountain of wisdom.

    Cinema Blend Feeds 2010

  • Miss Pedersen says he would therefore have had to be a 'contortionist' to have killed himself by slashing his left wrist, as Lord Hutton concluded in 2004.

    Canada Free Press 2010

  • That type of locker has been dubbed the 'contortionist' because it requires cyclists to lift their bikes up on to their rear wheels to fit them inside.

    Manchester Evening News - RSS Feed 2010

  • That type of locker has been dubbed the 'contortionist' because it requires cyclists to lift their bikes up on to their rear wheels to fit them inside.

    Manchester Evening News - RSS Feed 2010

  • This first winter issue has interviews with vegan celebs such as contortionist Rubber Richie, medal-winning body builder Pete Ryan, and musician Debbie Leigh Driver, and features on vegan stars like Natalie Portman and Chris Martin.

    Indymedia Ireland 2009

  • My poor injured brain gets all twisted up like some circus contortionist even trying to imagine how this procedure would work.

    Left Neglected Lisa Genova 2011

  • The championship rivalry began in April 1959, when the Minneapolis Lakers, led by high-scoring, mid-air contortionist Elgin Baylor and veteran Vern Mikkelsen, rallied from a last- place season the year before to upset the favored St. Louis Hawks in the Western Conference Finals.

    One Season William Fredrick Cooper 2011

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