twitch
/twɪt͡ʃ/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 3.76 in modern English
14
Scrabble Score
6
Letters
1
Syllables
5
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.
Countable; Uncountable
noun
Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.
Countable; Informal; Uncountable
noun
A stick with a hole in one end through which passes a loop, which can be drawn tightly over the upper lip or an ear of a horse and twisted to keep the animal quiet during minor surgery.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying."
- "THE TWITCH is a short stick of strong ash, about the size of a mopstick, with a hole pierced near the end, through which is passed a piece of strong but small cord, and tied in a loop large enough to admit the open hand freely."
- "Siberian Crane [...] Following its departure, there was much speculation that rediscovery at a less inaccessible locality would lead to one of the great twitches of 1981; alas, this was not to be."
- "His fingers were nervously twitching."
- "Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses..."
- "to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention"
Etymology
From Middle English twicchen, from Old English *twiċċan, from Proto-West Germanic *twikkijan (“to nail, pin, fasten, clasp, pinch”). Cognate with English tweak, Low German twikken, German Low German twicken (“to pinch, pinch off”), zweckōn and gizwickan (> German zwicken (“to pinch”)).
Origin
Word Breakdown
- Root: twicchen, *twiċċan, *twikkijan
Usage
Inflected Forms
Derived Forms
Phrases
fast-twitch
nervous twitch
sleep twitch
slow-twitch
twitch fire
twitch game
twitch gameplay
twitch grass