bend the truth

present singular third person bends the truth · participle present bending the truth · participle past bent the truth · past bent the truth

1. idiomaticTo change or leave out certain facts of a story or situation, generally in order to elicit a specific response in the audience.

   In relating the story to Julie, he decided to bend the truth just enough to make her think he had really been in danger.

   3 more examples

   In his warped attempt to bend the truth completely out of shape, ....

   1991 May 24, Larry Kahhan, “Gun-control groups shouldn't hail Brady Bill too early”, in Atlanta Journal Constitution, Letters to the Editor

   In a Feb. 5 column, Dottie Lamm seemed quite happy to bend the truth in all directions

   1995 February 23, “Letters to the Post”, in Denver Post, Denver & the West, page B-06

   KGB had always been on the lookout for hard facts, but then reported those facts to people besotted with a dream, who then bent the truth in the service of that dream. When the truth had finally broken through, the dream had suddenly evaporated like a cloud of steam in a high wind, and reality had poured in like the flood following the breakup of an icebound river in springtime.

   2001, Tom Clancy, The Bear and the Dragon