From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Contortion \Con*tor"tion\ (k[o^]n*t[^o]"sh[u^]n), noun [L. contortio: cf. F. contorsion. See {Contort}, and cf. {Torsion}.] A twisting; a writhing; wry motion; a twist; as, the contortion of the muscles of the face. --Swift.
All the contortions of the sibyl, without the inspiration. --Burke.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
noun
1: the act of twisting or deforming the shape of something (e.g., yourself) [syn: {deformation}]
2: a tortuous and twisted shape or position; "they built a tree house in the tortuosities of its boughs"; "the acrobat performed incredible contortions" [syn: {tortuosity}, {tortuousness}, {torsion}, {crookedness}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
25 Moby Thesaurus words for "contortion": anamorphism, anamorphosis, asymmetry, buckle, crookedness, detorsion, deviation, disproportion, distortion, gnarl, imbalance, irregularity, knot, lopsidedness, quirk, screw, torsion, tortuosity, turn, twist, unsymmetry, warp, wrench, wrest, wring
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