twice
/twaɪs/
Word Rarity
Uncommon
Frequency: Zipf frequency 4.84 in modern English
10
Scrabble Score
5
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
adv
adv
Doubled in quantity, intensity, or degree.
Example Sentences
- "You should brush your teeth twice a day."
- "No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. (1947, Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 1)"
- "I've done with my tirade. The world was gone; / The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made, / Were vanish'd to be what they call alone"
- "He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day."
- "Santa Claus is coming to town / He’s making a list, / And checking it twice, / He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice / Santa Claus is coming to town"
- "Malay is the lingua franca of several Southeast Asia countries and has been simplified by its use as a second language by non-native speakers. For example, the Malay plural is formed by repeating a word twice – buku means book and buku-buku means books."
Etymology
From earlier twise, from Middle English twies, twiȝes, from Old English twīġes (“twice”), from twīwa, twīġa ("twice"; whence Middle English twie (“twice”)) + -es (adverbial genitive ending). Related to Saterland Frisian twäie (“twice”), Middle Low German twiges, twies (“twice”), Middle High German zwies (“twice”). Equivalent to twi- (“(in) two; both”) + -ce. Similarly constructed to the prefixes bis- and dis-, borrowed from Indo-European cognates.
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: twies, twīġes