writhe

present singular third person writhes · participle present writhing · past writhed · archaic past wrothe · participle past writhed · archaic participle past wrothe · archaic participle past writhen

1. transitiveTo twist, wring (something).
2. transitiveTo contort (a part of the body).

   Cicero (as I remember) had gotten a custome to wryth his nose, which signifieth a naturall scoffer.

   1603, Michel de Montaigne, chapter 17, in John Florio, transl., The Essayes […], book II, London: […] Val[entine] Simmes for Edward Blount […], →OCLC

   1 more example

   She twisted her hands behind her; but all the knots held good! / She writhed her hands till her fingers were wet with sweat or blood! / They stretched and strained in the darkness, and the hours crawled by like years, / Till, now, on the stroke of midnight, / Cold, on the stroke of midnight, / The tip of one finger touched it! The trigger at least was hers!

   1906 August, Alfred Noyes, “The Highwayman”, in Poems, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., published October 1906, →OCLC, part 2, stanza IV, pages 50–51

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

   1 more example

   The game was engulfed in controversy when Rodwell appeared to win the ball cleanly in a midfield challenge with Suarez. The tackle drew an angry response from Liverpool's players- Lucas in particular as Suarez writhed in agony - but it was an obvious injustice when the England Under-21 midfielder was shown the red card.

   2011 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Everton 0-2 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2012

4. transitiveTo extort.

plural writhes

1. rareA contortion.
2. knot theoryThe number of negative crossings subtracted from the number of positive crossings in a knot