twitch
/twɪt͡ʃ/ noun, verb, proper noun
Forms twitches twitching twitched
- noun A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm. “I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying.”
- noun (informal) Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.
- noun (farriery) 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.
- noun (physiology) A brief, contractile response of a skeletal muscle elicited by a single maximal volley of impulses in the neurons supplying it.
- noun (mining) The sudden narrowing almost to nothing of a vein of ore.
- noun (birdwatching) A trip taken in order to observe a rare bird.
- verb (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm. “His fingers were nervously twitching.”
- verb (transitive) To cause to twitch; spasm.
- verb (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly. “to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention”
- verb (obsolete) To exert oneself.
- verb (birdwatching, transitive) To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
- verb (birdwatching, intransitive) To engage in twitching.
- noun couch grass (Elymus repens; a species of grass, often considered as a weed)
- proper noun A live streaming service that focuses on video game live streaming.
Synonyms
tic barnacle twitching vellication jerk flip pinch squeeze twinge tweet nip
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”)).
alternate of quitch
Inspired by the term twitch gameplay.
Webster’s 1913
- verb To pull with a sudden jerk; to pluck with a short, quick motion; to snatch; as, to twitch one by the sleeve; to twitch a thing out of another's hand; to twitch off clusters of grapes.
- noun The act of twitching; a pull with a jerk; a short, sudden, quick pull; as, a twitch by the sleeve.
- noun A short, spastic contraction of the fibers or muscles; a simple muscular contraction; as, convulsive twitches; a twitch in the side.
Etymology [OE. twicchen, fr. (doubtful) AS. twiccian; akin to AS. angeltwicca a worm used for bait, literally, a hook twitcher, LG. twikken to tweak, G. zwicken. Cf. Tweak.]
Sources: Wiktionary · WordNet 3.0 · Webster’s 1913 — from the Wiktionary entry “twitch”, CC BY-SA 4.0. Details