twig
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /twɪɡ/
ipa: [tʰw̥ɪɡ]
rhymes: -ɪɡ
Forms: form: twigs
form: twigging
form: twigged
form: twigged
Etymology: From Irish and Scottish Gaelic tuig (“to understand”).
Senses: examples: text: He hasn't twigged that we're planning a surprise party for him.
text: I pray you now send me some dub, / A bottle or two to the needy. / I beg you won't bring it yourself, / The harman is at the Old-Bailey; / I'd rather you'd send it behalf, / For, if they twig you they'll nail you.
ref: 1765, “A Song in High Life”, in The Merry Medley, volume 1, London: W. Hoggard, page 35:
text: I twigged him at once, by the description you gave me. I never see a cove togged out as he was,—tall hat, light sit-down-upons, and a short coat—wasn't it cut short! but in really bang-up style.
ref: 1915, “Putting on the Screw”, in Caught in the Net, New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, translation of Les Esclaves de Paris by Émile Gaboriau, page 23:
english: J'y ai reconnu le particulier que vous m'avez dit. Bien vêtu, ma foi! Chapeau rogné, tout plat, pantalon clair, en fourreau de parapluie, veston court, oh! mais d'un court... enfin, le dernier genre.
translation: J'y ai reconnu le particulier que vous m'avez dit. Bien vêtu, ma foi! Chapeau rogné, tout plat, pantalon clair, en fourreau de parapluie, veston court, oh! mais d'un court... enfin, le dernier genre.
bold_translation_offsets: 7
14
text: Well, with fewer people doing two or three times the work, you may have already twigged to this.
ref: 2012 May 30, John E. McIntyre, “A future for copy editors”, in Baltimore Sun, archived from the original on 23 Jun 2013:
text: At this point in our story, we first meet the fleet repair ship Kamchatka, who everyone would soon become regrettably familiar with. Her entry into our account here was her signal that she was under attack by torpedo boats! When she was asked how many, she replied "about eight, from all directions!". Eventually, someone twigged to the fact that absolutely nobody else could see so much as a seagull, let alone any exceptionally-lost Japanese torpedo boats. And, when nothing actually happened, Kamchatka refused to say that it was a false alarm, only that it had altered course and the torpedo boats had gone away.
ref: 2019 March 13, Drachinifel, 18:23 from the start, in The Russian 2nd Pacific Squadron - Voyage of the Damned, archived from the original on 29 Jan 2023:
glosses: To realise something; to catch on; to recognize someone or something.
examples: text: Dries had told us to bring at least twenty litres of water because there was no water in camp and very few tourists stayed there. I knew I wouldn't get a shower for three days, but I wasn't worried about that. It hadn't twigged that the reason we needed to bring our own water was that the camp itself was a warzone.
ref: 2009, Tammie Matson, Elephant Dance:
text: As the photographer took a couple of preliminary photographs of Mandy, Marcus seized the moment. He knelt behind her. When Mandy turned around, she was initially confused. Then it twigged – he was proposing.
ref: 2023 October 26, Francesca Street, “Two strangers moved into an apartment in Prague. Then they fell in love”, in CNN Travel:
glosses: To be realized and understood; to click.
examples: text: Do you twig me?
glosses: To understand the meaning of (a person); to comprehend.
examples: text: Now twig him; now mind him: mark how he hawls his muscles about.
ref: 1763, Samuel Foote, The Mayor of Garratt, act 2:
text: This excellent man appears to have sunk into himself in a sitting posture, […] while his exceedingly homely and wrinkled face, held a little on one side, twinkles at you with the shrewdest complacency, as if he were looking right into your eyes and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal from him.
ref: 1863, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Our Old Home:
glosses: To observe slyly; also, to perceive; to discover.
Synonyms: sense: to realise something
word: clock
word: get it
word: notice
word: identify
sense: to understand the meaning
word: fathom
sense: to understand the meaning
word: figure out
sense: to understand the meaning
word: grasp
sense: to understand the meaning
word: ken
sense: to understand the meaning
word: work out
sense: to observe slyly
word: check out
sense: to observe slyly
word: peep
sense: to observe slyly
word: spy on
sense: to observe slyly
word: surveil