twin
/twɪn/ noun, verb, adjective, proper noun
Forms twins twinning twinned twynne
- noun Either of two people (or, less commonly, animals) who shared the same uterus at the same time; one who was born at the same birth as a sibling. “twin girls, twin daughters, twin sisters, twin boys, twin sons, twin brothers, twin babies, twin children”
- noun (by extension) Either of two similar or closely related objects, plans, institutions, people, etc. “Your idea is the twin of mine.”
- noun (figurative) Either of two or more things, people, etc. that share a single feature. “He is my twin (wearing the same shirt, driving the same car, etc.).”
- noun (African-American Vernacular, slang) A friendly term of address, typically for men. “Yo, twin, lemme rap at ya.”
- noun A room in a hotel, guesthouse, etc. with two beds; a twin room.
- noun (crystallography) A twin crystal.
- noun (aviation) A two-engine aircraft.
- noun (US) A twin-size mattress.
- verb (transitive, obsolete outside Scotland) To separate, divide.
- verb (intransitive, obsolete outside Scotland) To split, part; to go away, depart.
- verb (usually in the passive) To join, unite; to form links between (now especially of two places in different countries); to pair with. “Reading, the English town, is twinned with Clonmel in Ireland.”
- verb (intransitive) To give birth to twins.
- verb (transitive) To be, or be like, a twin to (someone else); to match in some way.
- verb (intransitive) To be, or be like, a pair of twins (for example, to dress identically); to be paired or suited.
- adjective Double; dual; occurring as a matching pair. “twin beds, twin socks”
- adjective Forming a pair of twins. “the twin boys”
- noun (baseball) A player who plays for the Minnesota Twins.
- proper noun A town in Marion County, Alabama.
Synonyms
twindle twinling doublet twofold Gemini Twin Falls counterpart similitude duplicate parallel match mate couple pair matching twinned
Etymology
From Middle English twinne, twynne, from Old English ġetwin, ġetwinn (“twin, multiple”, noun) and twinn (“twin, two-fold, double, two by two”, adjective), from Proto-Germanic *twinaz (“double/two each, twin”), Proto-Germanic *twinjaz, *twīhnaz (“two each”), from Proto-Indo-European *dwino- (“twin”), from *dwóh₁ (“two”). Cognate with Scots twyn (“twin”), Dutch tweeling (“twin”), German Zwilling (“twin”), Danish, Norwegian Bokmål, Norwegian Nynorsk, and Swedish tvilling (“twin”), Faroese tvinnur (“a double set”), Icelandic tvenna (“duo, pair”), Lithuanian dvynys (“twin”), Russian двойня (dvojnja, “twin”).
From Middle English *twin, *twyn, from Old English twin, twinn (“twin; double”, adjective), from Proto-Germanic *twīhnaz (“occurring in a pair; twofold; double”), from Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁ (“two”). Cognate with Icelandic tvennur (“double”), Gothic 𐍄𐍅𐌴𐌹𐌷𐌽𐌰𐌹 (tweihnai, “two each”).
Webster’s 1913
- adjective Being one of two born at a birth; as, a twin brother or sister.
- adjective Being one of a pair much resembling one another; standing the relation of a twin to something else; --often followed by to or with. Shak.
- noun One of two produced at a birth, especially by an animal that ordinarily brings forth but one at a birth; --used chiefly in the plural, and applied to the young of beasts as well as to human young.
- noun pl. (Astron.)
Etymology [OE. twin double, AS. getwinne two and two, pl., twins; akin to D. tweeling a twin, G. zwilling, OHG. zwiniling, Icel. tvennr, tvinnr, two and two, twin, and to AS. twi- two. See Twice, Two.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “twin”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details