Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A contracted state of the neck muscles that causes the neck to rotate and tilt sideways, forwards, or backwards.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun In medicine, an affection in which the head is inclined toward one or the other shoulder while the neck is twisted so as to turn the chin in the opposite direction; stiff-neck; wry-neck.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun (Med.) See wryneck.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A medical condition in which the neck muscles contract causing the neck to twist or jerk

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun an unnatural condition in which the head leans to one side because the neck muscles on that side are contracted

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[New Latin : Latin tortus, twisted, past participle of torquēre, to twist; see terkw- in Indo-European roots + collum, neck; see kwel- in Indo-European roots.]

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Examples

  • The woman's husband, Noe Medina, told the Orange County Register on Tuesday that his wife had been hospitalized for postpartum depression in June after she said she didn't want their son, Noe Jr., who was diagnosed with congenital muscular torticollis — a twisting of the neck to one side.

    Police: Baby tossed from Calif. hospital has died 2011

  • The woman's husband, Noe Medina, told the Orange County Register on Tuesday that his wife had been hospitalized for postpartum depression in June after she said she didn't want their son, Noe Jr., who was diagnosed with congenital muscular torticollis — a twisting of the neck to one side.

    Police: Baby tossed from Calif. hospital has died 2011

  • The Navy crew were, it seems, involved in a business undertaking, [...] on August 9, 2007 at 3: 45 am | Reply torticollis torticollis stiff neck is very painful!

    Five To One Baby « POLICE INSPECTOR BLOG Inspector Gadget 2007

  • Here's the thing that comes along to complicate any strict feminist criticism of objectification in the images of Prommenschenckel lying prone: She has a condition known as spasmodic torticollis.

    Miss Ability lays down on the job Kay Olson 2007

  • Here's the thing that comes along to complicate any strict feminist criticism of objectification in the images of Prommenschenckel lying prone: She has a condition known as spasmodic torticollis.

    Archive 2007-03-01 Kay Olson 2007

  • Oculogyric crisis, blepharospasm, respiratory stridor with cyanosis, torticollis, and opisthotonos can occur, as well as slow, writhing movements of the extremities.

    The Neuropsychiatric Guide to Modern Everyday Psychiatry Michael Alan Taylor 1993

  • Rheumatism in childhood is not manifested by acute and short-lived attacks of great severity so much as by a long-continued succession of symptoms of a subacute nature, a transient arthritis, perhaps, succeeding an attack of sore throat with torticollis, to be followed by carditis, to be followed again by another attack of tonsillitis.

    The Nervous Child Hector Charles Cameron

  • It supplies the sterno-mastoid and trapezius; but as these muscles usually have an additional nerve supply from the cervical plexus, the accessory may be divided, or a considerable portion of it resected, as, for example, in the treatment of spasmodic torticollis, without any serious disablement resulting.

    Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. Alexander Miles 1893

  • When the torticollis attitude has been corrected in childhood, the asymmetry of the skull disappears.

    Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. Alexander Miles 1893

  • Deviations of the neck simulating torticollis may occur in cervical caries, and in unilateral dislocation of the spine.

    Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. Alexander Miles 1893

  • Persons can experience, for instance, an imbalance in the neck muscles called cervical dystonia or torticollis.

    Dystonia plagues musicians and has no easy remedies | Aeon Essays 2023

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  • Though bobbleheads children may call us

    Our wrynecks do bring us some solace.

    The world's all askew

    But not in our view:

    It's righted by our torticollis.

    April 19, 2017