Definition of "writhen" [writh•en]

• Archaic A past participle of writhe. (verb)
• Twisted; contorted. (adjective)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "He stalked stiff-legged, with a snarl writhen on his lips, and with recurrent waves of hair-bristling along his back and up his shoulders and neck."
• "He is writhen and enraged, and in his fury questions why"
• "Handed one of his enemy Colly Cibber's pamphlets against him, he supposedly declared, "These things are my diversion"--but those who watched as he read it saw "his features writhen with anguish"."