twist
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: enpr: twĭst
ipa: /twɪst/
ipa: [tw̥ɪst]
rhymes: -ɪst
Forms: form: twists
form: twisting
form: twisted
form: twisted
Etymology: PIE word
 *dwóh₁
From Middle English twist, from Old English *twist, in compounds (e.g. mæsttwist (“a rope; stay”), candeltwist (“a wick”)), from Proto-Germanic *twistaz, a derivative of *twi- (“two-”) (compare also twine, between, betwixt).
Related to Saterland Frisian Twist (“discord”), Dutch twist (“twist; strife; discord”), German Low German Twist (“strife; discord”), German Zwist (“turmoil; strife; discord”), Swedish tvist (“quarrel; dispute”), Icelandic tvistur (“deuce”).
The verb is from Middle English twisten. Compare Dutch twisten, Danish tviste (“to dispute”), Swedish tvista (“to argue; dispute”).
Senses: synonyms: torque
glosses: To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force.
examples: text: "Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country."
ref: 1900 May 17, L[yman] Frank Baum, chapter 15, in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Ill.; New York, N.Y.: Geo[rge] M[elvin] Hill Co., →OCLC:
glosses: To join together by twining one part around another.
examples: June 8, 1714, Alexander Pope, letter to Jonathan Swift
twisting it into a serpentine form.
glosses: To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
examples: text: longing to twist bays with that ivy
ref: 1645, Edmund Waller, To my Lord of Falkland:
text: There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
ref: 1844, Robert Chambers, “Dr Thomas Burnet”, in Cyclopædia of English Literature:
glosses: To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
examples: text: Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
glosses: To wind into; to insinuate.
glosses: To turn a knob etc.
examples: text: Say I could succeed at the Bar, and achieve a fortune by bullying witnesses and twisting evidence; is that a fame which would satisfy my longings, or a calling in which my life would be well spent?
ref: 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC:
glosses: To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
glosses: To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings).
examples: text: Then Romany went down, then we fell together, and the chaps separated us. I got another knock-down blow in, and was beginning to enjoy the novelty of it, when Romany staggered and limped.
‘I’ve done,’ he said. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ He’d caught his heel against a tuft of grass.
ref: 1901, Henry Lawson, Joe Wilson's Courtship:
text: Oh, you are a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs Pearce warned me. Time and again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the last minute. And you dont care a bit for her. And you dont care a bit for me.
ref: 1912 (date written), [George] Bernard Shaw, “Pygmalion”, in Androcles and the Lion, Overruled, Pygmalion, London: Constable and Company, published 1916, →OCLC, Act V, page 185:
glosses: To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction.
examples: text: I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.
ref: 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y.; London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
text: My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration in the teeming labyrinths of ancient streets that twist endlessly from forgotten courts and squares and waterfronts to courts and squares and waterfronts equally forgotten, and in the Cyclopean modern towers and pinnacles that rise blackly Babylonian under waning moons, I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me.
ref: 1926, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, He:
glosses: To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
raw_tags: of a path
examples: text: The tide seized us and swept us along, and in the races where this happened there were sucking whirlpools, strong enough to twist us round.
ref: 1911, John Masefield, chapter 8, in Jim Davis:
glosses: To cause to rotate.
examples: text: Twist it in the alley
 With long tall Sally
Twistin' with Lucy
 Doin' the watusi.
ref: 1962, “Land of a Thousand Dances”, Chris Kenner (lyrics), performed by Chris Kenner:
glosses: To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
examples: text: "On the three-thousand-dollar reward John Bain is offerin' for the return of his sister," said Ace. "Now listen--I know a certain big Chinee had her kidnapped outa her 'rickshaw out at the edge of the city one evenin'. He's been keepin' her prisoner in his house, waitin' a chance to send her up-country to some bandit friends of his'n; then they'll be in position to twist a big ransome outa John Bain, see? [...]"
ref: 1932, Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai:
glosses: To coax.
topics: card-games
games
glosses: In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.
Derived terms: sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: arm-twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: barley twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: flat twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: French twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: gaining twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: gain twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: get it twisted
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: get one's knickers in a twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: hanky-twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: intertwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: Mason twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: mule twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: nigger twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: nontwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: overtwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: plot twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: retwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: rope twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: round the twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: Russian twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: self-twisting
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: Senegalese twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: stub twist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: supertwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twistable
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist and turn
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist around
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist around one's little finger
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist-boat
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist drill
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twister
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twistfree
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist grip
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twistical
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist in the wind
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist morphism
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist-off
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist off
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist of fate
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist of the knife
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist someone's arm
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist someone's balls
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist someone's words
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist splice
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist the knife
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist the knife in the wound
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist tie
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twist up
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twistwood
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: twisty
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: undertwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: untwist
sense: terms derived from the noun and verb "twist"
word: water twist