warp
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /wɔːp/
ipa: /wɔɹp/
ipa: /woːp/
rhymes: -ɔː(ɹ)p
Forms: form: warps
Etymology: From Middle English warp, werp, from Old English wearp, warp (“a warp, threads stretched lengthwise in a loom, twig, osier”), from Proto-Germanic *warpą (“a warp”), from Proto-Indo-European *werb- (“to turn, bend”).
Cognate with Middle Dutch warp, Middle Low German warp, German werfen, Danish varp, Swedish varp.
Senses: examples: text: All frames found to suffer from warp should be broken up straight away before the printer is tempted during a rush to make use of them.
ref: 1920, The British Journal of Photography, volume 67, page 246:
text: Rough lumber is rarely perfectly straight, and may suffer from warp,
ref: 2001, Roland Johnson, Automotive Woodworking : Restoration, Repair and Replacement, →ISBN:
text: The part is not fragile, does not need benching to remove "stair-stepping" on curved surfaces and does not need post curing. It does not suffer from warp, sag or curl.
ref: 1992, Innovation, volumes 11-12, page 32:
text: […] and Senft found that the fibril angle in both the Pinus and Populus was high in juvenile wood, indicating that both are likely to exhibit warp in drying.
ref: 1992, Progrès scientifique au service du bois (International Union of Forestry Research Organizations. Division 5. Conference), page 503
glosses: The state, quality, or condition of being twisted, physically or mentally:
The state, quality, or condition of being physically bent or twisted out of shape.
examples: text: He believed that we were suffering from warp or bias, that a blind spot contorted our mental vision.
ref: 1933, Journal of the National Proctologic Association, volume 6, number 5, page 126:
text: […] and may discover that the potency of this politician-father had so altered the freedom with which corrective authority could be imposed on his son that to an extraordinary extent the person as an adult continues to suffer from warp acquired at home as a child.
ref: 1966, Man and International Relations: Conflict, page 306:
glosses: The state, quality, or condition of being twisted, physically or mentally:
The state, quality, or condition of being deviant from what is right or proper morally or mentally.
examples: text: Wills, too, was struck down by a pole but was saved because a warp in the wood bent upwards, creating a pocket for his body.
ref: 1998, Gary May, Hard Oiler!: The Story of Canadians' Quest for Oil at Home, page 86:
text: In yet another ironic twist in a story richly endowed with such warps, the Tsar's telegram crossed one despatched in the other direction.
ref: 2014, July Crisis: The World's Descent into War, Summer 1914, page 396:
glosses: A distortion:
A distortion or twist, such as in a piece of wood (also used figuratively).
examples: text: It is interesting to note that it has been suggested by Lugaro to partially extirpate the thyroid in cases of moral insanity; an excessive secretion of thyroid being regarded as the cause of excessive amativeness, thieving, and other mental warps […]
ref: 1905, Therapeutic Gazette, page 752:
glosses: A distortion:
A mental or moral distortion, deviation, or aberration.
topics: business
manufacturing
textiles
weaving
glosses: The threads that run lengthwise in a woven fabric; crossed by the woof or weft.
examples: text: The sense of sin (enforced by piacular rites) is as important to social integration as the committing of crimes (in due proportion) which alone can cause the mobilization of moral values that is the warp of society and of human conscience.
ref: 1993, The Sociological Tradition, →ISBN, page 251:
text: This stretch is typical of the Piedmont section, where the warp of the economic structure is agriculture and the woof industry.
ref: 2013, The WPA Guide to North Carolina: The Tar Heel State, page 388:
glosses: The foundation, the basis, the undergirding.
examples: text: We finish’d the Raft that Night, and in the Morning sent Mr. Prat, our Chief Mate, and four Men in the Boat with a long Rope for a Warp, to fasten on the Land.
ref: 1743, Robert Drury, The Pleasant, and Surprizing Adventures of Mr. Robert Drury, during his Fifteen Years Captivity on the Island of Madagascar, London, pages 11–12:
text: […] trailed one of my sea anchors or at least some warps in order to ease the ship […]
ref: 1966, Peter Tangvald, Sea Gypsy, page 24:
topics: nautical
transport
glosses: A line or cable or rode as is used in warping (mooring or hauling) a ship, and sometimes for other purposes such as deploying a seine or creating drag.
glosses: A theoretical construct that permits travel across a medium without passing through it normally, such as a teleporter or time warp.
examples: text: If Times Square nevertheless remained a metaphor for the city's changing dynamics, it was stuck in a warp of immobility, unable to push itself forward as it had in the early part of the twentieth century.
ref: 2003, Lynne B. Sagalyn, Times Square Roulette: Remaking the City Icon, page 67:
text: Evolutionary psychology often seems to be stuck in a warp on the grassy African plains, even though we know that early humans didn't stay on the Savannah but moved from around 2 million years ago out of Africa into quite different terrains.
ref: 2012, Sîan Ede, Art and Science, page 68:
text: To succeed routinely at mind-reading or telekinesis or love charms would result in no learning, no amusement, no spiritual growth (for a companion parable, check out Bill Murray's Groundhog Day). We would be stuck in a warp […]
ref: 2012, Richard Grossinger, Dark Pool of Light, Volume Three, page 105:
glosses: A situation or place which is or seems to be from another era; a time warp.
examples: text: The silt is brought down and the strong tide of the Humber brings it up in very large quantities, so that the river the whole way through nearly is exceedingly thick. Added to that I may say that we suffer from warp to a tremendous extent.
ref: 1902, C. K. Eddowes, speaking before the Royal Commission on Salmon Fisheries, as recorded in the Parliamentary Papers, House of Commons, volume 13, page 99
glosses: The sediment which subsides from turbid water; the alluvial deposit of muddy water artificially introduced into low lands in order to enrich or fertilise them.
examples: a warp of fish
glosses: A throw or cast, as of fish (in which case it is used as a unit of measure: about four fish, though sometimes three or even two), oysters, etc.
Derived terms: credits warp
guess warp
time warp
warp and weft
warp and woof
warp beam
warp bubble
warp drive
warp end
warp factor
warp knit
warp knitting
warp lace
warp speed
warpwise