distortion

plural distortions

1. countableuncountableAn act of distorting.
2. countableuncountableA result of distorting.
3. countableuncountableA misrepresentation of the truth.

   The story he told was a bit of a distortion.

   3 more examples

   It was not until much later, in Stalin's time, that Marxists came to use 'ideology' to denote all forms of social consciousness, including those that were supposed to present a scientific account of the world, free from mystification and distortion.

   1978 [1976], Leszek Kołakowski, translated by P[aul] S[teven] Falla, Main Currents of Marxism, volume I: The Founders, Oxford: Clarendon Press, translation of Główne nurty marksizmu: powstanie (in Polish), →ISBN, →OCLC, page 154

   The conscious mind refuses to admit any failure to perceive, and puts in its place a series of rationalisations which are fabrications and distortions of the real nature of things.

   1999 July 9, Bernard Burgoyne, “The Mind”, in The Guardian

   Remembering is an act of re-creation and therefore subject to distortion and fictionalization: 'real' memories become tales, and tales become 'memories'.

   2012, Caspar Henderson, The Book of Barely Imagined Beings, page 204

4. countableuncountableNoise or other artifacts caused in the electronic reproduction of sound or music.

   This recording sounds awful due to the distortion.

5. countableuncountableAn effect used in music, most commonly on guitars in rock or metal.
6. countableuncountableengineeringAn aberration that causes magnification to change over the field of view.