It is a great pleasure to invite you to visit us for the first time in Munich during High End fair 2024. Closer Acoustics will have a place in Halle 4 stand S05.

Since 1834 the word also is used by antiquarians and others for the twisted circular metal ornament forming a necklace or collar worn anciently by Gauls, Britons, Germans, and other barbarians, from Latin torques "collar of twisted metal," from torquere. Earlier it had been called in English torques (1690s).

In classical Latin, dis- paralleled de- and had much the same meaning, but in Late Latin dis- came to be the favored form and this passed into Old French as des-, the form used for compound words formed in Old French, where it increasingly had a privative sense ("not"). In English, many of these words eventually were altered back to dis-, while in French many have been altered back to de-. The usual confusion prevails.

As a living prefix in English, it reverses or negatives what it is affixed to. Sometimes, as in Italian, it is reduced to s- (as in spend, splay, sport, sdain for disdain, and the surnames Spencer and Spence).

The figurative sense (in reference to words, etc.), "a perversion of the true meaning or intent" is attested from 1640s. The meaning "change in the wave-form of a signal by a device" is from 1887, specifically of amplifiers by 1962.

word-forming element of Latin origin meaning 1. "lack of, not" (as in dishonest); 2. "opposite of, do the opposite of" (as in disallow); 3. "apart, away" (as in discard), from Old French des- or directly from Latin dis- "apart, asunder, in a different direction, between," figuratively "not, un-," also "exceedingly, utterly." Assimilated as dif- before -f- and to di- before most voiced consonants.

1580s, "action of distorting; state of being twisted out of shape," from Latin distortionem (nominative distortio), noun of action from past-participle stem of distorquere "to twist different ways, distort," from dis- "completely" (see dis-) + torquere "to twist" (see torque (n.)).

"rotating force," 1882, from Latin torquere "to twist, turn, turn about, twist awry, distort, torture" (from PIE *torkw-eyo-, causative of root *terkw- "to twist"). Torque-wrench is attested from 1941.

The Latin prefix is from PIE *dis- "apart, asunder" (source also of Old English te-, Old Saxon ti-, Old High German ze-, German zer-). The PIE root is a secondary form of *dwis- and thus is related to Latin bis "twice" (originally *dvis) and to duo, on notion of "two ways, in twain" (hence "apart, asunder").