twisted

1. 1
   adjectivewith up

   Mentally or emotionally distorted and unsound, showing an unhealthy or perverted way of thinking.

   Critics called the film's antagonist genuinely twisted.

   Her twisted logic somehow justified the cruelest acts.

   Similarsick, warped, perverted, depraved, deranged

   Oppositesane, wholesome, healthy

   Note

   A different route into the word: this meaning probably comes from the noun twist, meaning a mental peculiarity or perversion, which was in use by 1811. It describes people and what they produce, such as a twisted sense of humor or a twisted sociopath, and it also takes up: someone can be twisted up as well as twisted. Unlike the 'distorted words' meaning, the fault here lies in the mind itself.

2. 2
   adjective

   Bent out of its normal shape or out of its proper position, so that it ends up distorted or contorted.

   Rescuers searched the twisted wreckage of the bridge for survivors.

   Years of arthritis had left her fingers swollen and twisted.

   Similarbent, mangled, contorted, distorted, deformed

   Oppositestraight

   Note

   Here the verb's turning motion is stretched to anything wrenched out of true, whether by sudden force or by slow damage. As a full adjective it grades (more twisted, most twisted), and that is the quickest way to tell it from the past participle of twist. The fingers were twisted can report what someone did to them, while the fingers grew more twisted can only describe their state.

3. 3
   adjective

   Made up of two or more threads, strands, or similar pieces wound together by twisting or twining.

   The cable consisted of several twisted copper wires.

   Artisans wove the basket from twisted reeds gathered by the river.

   Similarbraided, stranded, entwined

   Note

   The original, physical sense, built directly from the verb twist by the late 15th century: strands turned around one another until they hold as one. In craft and engineering talk it names a construction, not a flaw, as in twisted wire, twisted yarn and twisted rope. Every bent or distorted meaning elsewhere in the word starts from this neutral picture of things wound together.

4. 4
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of twist.

   The road twisted sharply through the mountains.

   They twisted the loose wires together to fix the connection.

   Note

   The verb is regular: twist simply adds -ed. One spelling serves both the simple past (she twisted the knob) and the participle after have or be (the wires were twisted together). The same spelling is also an adjective, so a phrase like twisted wire can be read either way. If it accepts very or more twisted, it is the adjective.

5. 5
   adjective

   Having its intended meaning altered or misrepresented, so that it is understood wrongly.

   Opponents circulated a twisted interpretation of the new policy.

   His quote appeared in a twisted form that reversed his original point.

   Similardistorted, warped, garbled, skewed, slanted

   Oppositeaccurate, faithful, true

   Note

   Words bent the way a wire is bent: the idea of something pulled out of shape, carried over to speech and meaning. It can blame either side. A twisted account points at whoever distorted it, while the casual warning don't get this twisted points at the listener and heads off a misreading before it happens. That idiom is spoken and informal, and it is best kept out of careful prose.

6. 6
   adjective

   Very intoxicated, usually from heavy use of alcohol and marijuana.

   Half the crowd was twisted before the headliner even came on.

   She admitted she had been too twisted to drive home that night.

   Similarwasted, smashed, hammered, stoned, wrecked

   Oppositesober

   Note

   A word with a literary pedigree. In John Clellon Holmes's The Horn (1958), a bystander marvels, "Man, he's twisted! But on what?" Hunter S. Thompson uses it in 1971 for the state he expects to reach on the road to Las Vegas. It pairs naturally with degree words, as in so twisted or completely twisted, and it belongs firmly to casual talk.

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