Distorture

Distorture is an obsolete synonym for distortion. (Examples given in the Oxford English Dictionary date from 1613 and 1709, respectively.) It is also the name of a collection of horror stories by Rob Hardin (Black Ice Books, 1997) and, later, a thrash metal band in Oxford and a nightclub in Edinburgh. For centuries, the term languished in obscurity. It was rediscovered in 1986, when Hardin and guitarist Bond Bergland were researching possible names for a music project (eventually known as "Saqqara Dogs").