mindmap
root((TORT))
extort
To obtain from a person by force, threats, or illegal power.
🌱She had tried to extort money from a film star, claiming that he was the father of her baby. 🌳To extort is literally to wrench something out of someone. Extortion is a mainstay of organized crime. Just as the school bully extorts lunch money from the smaller kids in exchange for not beating them up, thugs extort "protection" money from business owners with threats of violence. But that's only one kind of extortion; a mobster might extort favors from a politician with threats of revealing some dark secret, just as you might extort a favor from a brother or sister by promising not to tell on them. contort To twist in a violent manner.
🌱The governor's explanation of his affair was so contorted that it only made matters worse for him. 🌳Circus contortionists are known for twisting their bodies into pretzels; such contortions tend to be easier for females than for males, and much easier for the young than for the old. When trying to say something uncomfortable or dishonest, people often go through verbal contortions. But when someone else "twists" something you said or did, we usually say instead that they've distorted it. tortuous 1、 Having many twists, bends, or turns; winding.
2、 Crooked or tricky; involved, complex.
🌱The road over the mountains was long and dangerously tortuous, and as you rounded the sharp corners you could never see whether a huge truck might be barreling down toward you. 🌳A labyrinth is a tortuous maze. The first labyrinth was built as a prison for the monstrous Minotaur, half bull and half man; only by holding one end of a thread was the heroic Theseus able to enter and slay the Minotaur and then exit. A tortuous problem, a tortuous history, and the tortuous path of a bill through Congress all have many unexpected twists and turns; a tortuous explanation or argument may be too crooked for its own good. Don't confuse tortuous with torturous, which means "tortured" or "painfully unpleasant"; tortuous has nothing to do with torture.
🌱She had tried to extort money from a film star, claiming that he was the father of her baby. 🌳To extort is literally to wrench something out of someone. Extortion is a mainstay of organized crime. Just as the school bully extorts lunch money from the smaller kids in exchange for not beating them up, thugs extort "protection" money from business owners with threats of violence. But that's only one kind of extortion; a mobster might extort favors from a politician with threats of revealing some dark secret, just as you might extort a favor from a brother or sister by promising not to tell on them. contort To twist in a violent manner.
🌱The governor's explanation of his affair was so contorted that it only made matters worse for him. 🌳Circus contortionists are known for twisting their bodies into pretzels; such contortions tend to be easier for females than for males, and much easier for the young than for the old. When trying to say something uncomfortable or dishonest, people often go through verbal contortions. But when someone else "twists" something you said or did, we usually say instead that they've distorted it. tortuous 1、 Having many twists, bends, or turns; winding.
2、 Crooked or tricky; involved, complex.
🌱The road over the mountains was long and dangerously tortuous, and as you rounded the sharp corners you could never see whether a huge truck might be barreling down toward you. 🌳A labyrinth is a tortuous maze. The first labyrinth was built as a prison for the monstrous Minotaur, half bull and half man; only by holding one end of a thread was the heroic Theseus able to enter and slay the Minotaur and then exit. A tortuous problem, a tortuous history, and the tortuous path of a bill through Congress all have many unexpected twists and turns; a tortuous explanation or argument may be too crooked for its own good. Don't confuse tortuous with torturous, which means "tortured" or "painfully unpleasant"; tortuous has nothing to do with torture.
TORT comes from a form of the Latin verb torquere, meaning "to twist, wind, or wrench." In torture, parts of the body may be wrenched or twisted or stretched; so those "Indian sunburns" that schoolkids give by twisting in different directions on some unlucky guy's wrist stay pretty close to torture's original meaning.🌸