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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

writhe.

To twist, wring (something).

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/ɹaɪð/

  1. To twist, wring (something).

    transitive

  2. To contort (a part of the body).

    transitive

  3. To twist bodily; to contort one's self; to be distorted.

    intransitive

  4. To extort.

    transitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English writhen, from Old English wrīþan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrīþan, from Proto-Germanic *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist, turn”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist, writhe”). Cognate with Middle Dutch writen (“to turn, twist”), dialectal German reiden (“to turn, twist, lace”), Danish vride (“to twist”), Swedish vrida (“to turn, twist, wind”), French rider (“to wrinkle, furrow, ruffle”, (< Germanic)). Compare also Lithuanian riēsti (“to unbend, wind, roll”).

noun/ɹaɪð/

  1. A contortion.

    rare

  2. The number of negative crossings subtracted from the number of positive crossings in a knot

Where this word comes from

From Middle English writhen, from Old English wrīþan, from Proto-West Germanic *wrīþan, from Proto-Germanic *wrīþaną (“to weave, twist, turn”), from Proto-Indo-European *wreyt- (“to twist, writhe”). Cognate with Middle Dutch writen (“to turn, twist”), dialectal German reiden (“to turn, twist, lace”), Danish vride (“to twist”), Swedish vrida (“to turn, twist, wind”), French rider (“to wrinkle, furrow, ruffle”, (< Germanic)). Compare also Lithuanian riēsti (“to unbend, wind, roll”).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.