warp
pronunciation
How to pronounce warp in British English:
UK [wɔ:p]
How to pronounce warp in American English:
US [wɔrp]
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- Noun:
- a twist or aberration; especially a perverse or abnormal way of judging or acting
- a shape distorted by twisting or folding
- a moral or mental distortion
- yarn arranged lengthways on a loom and crossed by the woof
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- Verb:
- make false by mutilation or addition; as of a message or story
- bend out of shape, as under pressure or from heat
Word Origin
- warp
- warp: [OE] Warp originally meant ‘throw’ (‘Saint Paul’s head after his decease in a deep vewar [fishpond] warped was’, Scottish Legends of the Saints 1375). The notion of ‘bending’ or ‘twisting’ is a secondary development (first recorded in the 14th century). Its immediate inspiration may have been the related Old Norse past participle orpinn ‘warped’, but the underlying motivation was no doubt a conceptual link between ‘throwing’ and ‘twisting’, presumably via ‘throw with a twisting action’ (it is probably no coincidence that English throw originally meant ‘twist’).The word came from a prehistoric Germanic base *werb-, which also produced German werfen and Dutch werpan ‘throw’. This was probably descended from Indo-European *wer-, source also of Latin vertere ‘turn’, from which English gets revert, version, etc.=> convert, revert, version, wharf
- warp (v.)
- "to bend, twist, distort," Old English weorpan "to throw, throw away, hit with a missile," from Proto-Germanic *werpan "to fling by turning the arm" (cognates: Old Saxon werpan, Old Norse verpa "to throw," Swedish värpa "to lay eggs," Old Frisian werpa, Middle Low German and Dutch werpen, German werfen, Gothic wairpan "to throw"), from PIE *werp- "to turn, wind, bend" (cognates: Latin verber "whip, rod;" Greek rhabdos "rod," rhombos "magic wheel"), from root *wer- (3) "to turn, bend" (see versus). Connection between "turning" and "throwing" is perhaps in the notion of rotating the arm in the act of throwing; compare Old Church Slavonic vrešti "to throw," from the same PIE root. The meaning "twist out of shape" is first recorded c. 1400; intransitive sense is from mid-15c. Related: Warped; warping.
- warp (n.)
- "threads running lengthwise in a fabric," Old English wearp, from Proto-Germanic *warpo- (cognates: Middle Low German warp, Old High German warf "warp," Old Norse varp "cast of a net"), from PIE *werp- "to turn, bend" (see warp (v.)). The warp of fabric is that across which the woof is "thrown." Applied in 20c. astrophysics to the "fabric" of space-time, popularized in noun phrase warp speed by 1960s TV series "Star Trek."
Example
- 1. How many of those have warp travel capability ?
- 2. Make no mistake : warp drive technology is highly speculative .
- 3. Would a real-life capt. kirk eat an infinite amount of radiation every time someone engaged the warp drive ?
- 4. The space warp occurs because the picture is actually a full 360 degree panorama , horizontally compressed to fit your browser .
- 5. Cosmic wormholes might open a doorway to the other side of the galaxy , but scientists continue to ponder the rich possibilities of another loophole in relativity : the warp drive .