Definitions

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

  • adjective Twisted; contorted.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Obsolete or archaic past participle of writhe.

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

  • adjective Having a twisted distorted from.

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

  • adjective Having been worked or prepared somehow.
  • verb archaic Past participle of work

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

  • adjective twisted (especially as in pain or struggle)

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

Archaic past participle of work.

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Examples

  • He stalked stiff-legged, with a snarl writhen on his lips, and with recurrent waves of hair-bristling along his back and up his shoulders and neck.

    CHAPTER XV 2010

  • He is writhen and enraged, and in his fury questions why

    s a compromising situation... Jim Conway 2010

  • Handed one of his enemy Colly Cibber's pamphlets against him, he supposedly declared, "These things are my diversion"--but those who watched as he read it saw "his features writhen with anguish".

    Archive 2009-09-01 Rus Bowden 2009

  • Handed one of his enemy Colly Cibber's pamphlets against him, he supposedly declared, "These things are my diversion"--but those who watched as he read it saw "his features writhen with anguish".

    News at Eleven: [Samuel] Johnson preserves the memorable anecdote Rus Bowden 2009

  • The doors of this secret apartment, and the adjacent antechamber, were guarded by six deformed Nubian slaves, whose writhen and withered countenances formed a hideous contrast with their snow-white dresses and splendid equipment.

    Count Robert of Paris 2008

  • When, however, the little insignificant figure we have described approached so nigh as to receive some interruption from the warders, he dashed his dusky green turban from his head, showed that his beard and eyebrows were shaved like those of a professed buffoon, and that the expression of his fantastic and writhen features, as well as of his little black eyes, which glittered like jet, was that of a crazed imagination.

    The Talisman 2008

  • See how his writhen features show under the hollow helmet, like those of a corpse tenanted by a demon, whose vindictive purpose looks out at the flashing eyes, while the visage has the stillness of death.

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

  • Their countenances seemed fiercely writhen into the wildest expression of pride, hate, and a desperate purpose of fighting to the very last.

    The Fair Maid of Perth 2008

  • As she approached more closely, her mantle of bright tartan, in which the red colour much predominated, her stature, the long stride with which she advanced, and the writhen features and wild eyes which were visible from under her curch, would have made her no inadequate representative of the spirit which gave name to the valley.

    Chronicles of the Canongate 2008

  • But now when she looked she saw that the eyes of the witch were open and staring, and her lips white, and her hands hard writhen; and she cried out and said: Is she dead? or will she waken presently and beat me? surely she is dead.

    The Water of the Wondrous Isles 2007

Comments

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  • o the writhen pretzel

    May 4, 2009