Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun The act of twisting or turning.
- noun The condition of being twisted or turned.
- noun The stress or deformation caused when one end of an object is twisted in one direction and the other end is held motionless or twisted in the opposite direction.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The act or effect of twisting; a forcible strain of a solid body by which parallel planes are turned relatively to one another round an axis perpendicular to them.
- noun A wringing or wrenching, as of pain; a griping; tormina.
- noun In surgery, the twisting of the cut end of a small artery in a wound or after an operation, for the purpose of checking hemorrhage.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The act of turning or twisting, or the state of being twisted; the twisting or wrenching of a body by the exertion of a lateral force tending to turn one end or part of it about a longitudinal axis, while the other is held fast or turned in the opposite direction.
- noun (Mech.) That force with which a thread, wire, or rod of any material, returns, or tends to return, to a state of rest after it has been twisted; torsibility.
- noun (of a curve) (Geom.), the indefinitely small angle between two consecutive osculating planes of a curve of double curvature.
- noun (Mech.) the moment of a pair of equal and opposite couples which tend to twist a body.
- noun (Physics.) an instrument for estimating very minute forces, as electric or magnetic attractions and repulsions, by the torsion of a very slender wire or fiber having at its lower extremity a horizontal bar or needle, upon which the forces act.
- noun a scale for weighing in which the fulcra of the levers or beams are strained wires or strips acting by torsion.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun The act of
turning or twisting, or the state of being twisted; the twisting orwrenching of a body by theexertion of alateral force tending to turn one end or part of it about alongitudinal axis , while the other is heldfast or turned in the opposite direction. - noun mechanics That force with which a thread, wire, or rod of any material, returns, or tends to return, to a state of rest after it has been twisted;
torsibility .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun a tortuous and twisted shape or position
- noun a twisting force
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Twisting of the testicles, called torsion, can damage them and lead to antisperm antibody production.
A Baby at Last! Mark L. Fuerst 2010
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Dr. Gregory Cochran, the first author on the Utah team's paper and a physicist who took up biology, said he became interested in the subject upon learning that patients with a particular Ashkenazic disease known as torsion dystonia were told by their physicians that "the positive thing is that this makes you smart."
Archive 2005-06-05 Steve Sailer 2005
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Dr. Gregory Cochran, the first author on the Utah team's paper and a physicist who took up biology, said he became interested in the subject upon learning that patients with a particular Ashkenazic disease known as torsion dystonia were told by their physicians that "the positive thing is that this makes you smart."
Nicholas Wade in New York Times on the Cochran-Hardy-Harpending Theory of Ashkenazi IQ Steve Sailer 2005
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The problem stems from the fact that the symptoms of mumps most especially swelling of the testicles can overlap with those caused by mononucleosis and a testicle problem called torsion.
Getting Pregnant Niels H. Lauersen 2000
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Possibilities include testicular torsion, which is incredibly painful and must be dealt with immediately.
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His study, published in 1970 in the medical journal Lancet, compared IQs of 14 children with a Jewish disease called torsion dystonia -- a neurological disorder that causes uncontrollable muscle contractions that twist the body -- along with 10 of their healthy siblings, and unrelated Jewish students matched by age, sex and school.
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Siobhan said: hes going to be fine after he got jumped on by a 3 year old child A spiral fracture (also called a torsion fracture) is a bone ...
The Dreamin' Demon 2009
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To guard against the influence of air currents, the apparatus (called a torsion balance) was enclosed in a room and observed with telescopes mounted on each side.
doggdot.us 2008
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Another trend, growing from Weyl's work, involved introducing various geo - metrical features, such as torsion, directly into space - time, a notable example being the theory, based on an unsymmetric gab, on which Einstein was working at the time of his death.
RELATIVITY BANESH HOFFMANN 1968
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Quartz fibres have two great advantages over other forms of suspension when employed for any kind of torsion balance, from an ordinary more or less "astatic" galvanometer to the Cavendish apparatus.
On Laboratory Arts Richard Threlfall
chained_bear commented on the word torsion
"...the many, many cases of gross surfeit that have now replaced the frostbites, torsions and debility of the recent past..."
--Patrick O'Brian, Blue at the Mizzen, 177
March 27, 2008