Word.ws English Dictionary

writhen

UK/ˈɹɪðən/

writhen is the past participle of writhe.

Adjective

writhen (comparative more writhen, superlative most writhen)

  1. (archaic) Twisted, contorted.
  2. (archaic) Made or shaped by intertwining; plaited.

Meaning of writhe

Verb

writhe (third-person singular simple present writhes, present participle writhing, simple past writhed or (archaic) wrothe, past participle writhed or (archaic) wrothe or (archaic) writhen)

  1. (transitive) To twist, wring (something).
  2. (transitive) To 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
  3. (intransitive) To twist bodily; to contort one's self; to be distorted.
    • 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...2011 October 1, Phil McNulty, “Everton 0-2 Liverpool”, in BBC Sport, archived from the original on 06 Jan 2012
  4. (transitive) To extort.

See all 6 meanings of writhe

Forms of writhen

comparativemore writhen
superlativemost writhen

Questions about writhen

What does writhen mean?
Writhen means twisted, contorted.
What is writhen the past participle of?
Writhen is the past participle of writhe.
What part of speech is writhen?
Writhen is an adjective.
How do you pronounce writhen?
Writhen is pronounced /ˈɹɪðən/ (UK).

Words near writhen in the dictionary

  1. writh'd
  2. writh's
  3. writhe
  4. writhed
  5. writhedly
  6. writhen
  7. writheneck
  8. writher
  9. writhers
  10. writhes
  11. writhing

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: writhen (page history and authors); writhe (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “writhen.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/writhen. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.