English
twist
see also: Twist
Etymology

From Middle English twist, from Old English *twist, in compounds (e.

Related to Saterland Frisian Twist, Dutch twist, nds-de Twist, German Zwist, Swedish tvist, Icelandic tvistur.

The verb is from Middle English twisten.

Pronunciation
  • enPR: twĭst, IPA: /twɪst/, [tw̥ɪst]
Noun

twist

  1. A twisting force.
  2. Anything twisted, or the act of twisting.
    • 1906, Edith Nesbit, chapter 8, in The Railway Children:
      Peter was always proud afterwards when he remembered that, with the Bargee's furious fingers tightening on his ear, the Bargee's crimson countenance close to his own, the Bargee's hot breath on his neck, he had the courage to speak the truth.
      "I wasn't catching fish," said Peter.
      "That's not your fault, I'll be bound," said the man, giving Peter's ear a twist—not a hard one—but still a twist.
    • 1711 July 29 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, July 18, 1711”, in The Spectator, number 120; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC ↗:
      Not the least turn or twist in the fibres of any one animal which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture.
      The spelling has been modernized.
  3. The form given in twisting.
    • 1712, Humphry Polesworth [pseudonym; John Arbuthnot], “How Jack Hang’d Himself Up by the Perswasion of His Friends, who Broke Their Word, and Left His Neck in the Noose”, in An Appendix to John Bull Still in His Senses: Or, Law is a Bottomless-Pit. […], 2nd edition, London: […] John Morphew, […], →OCLC ↗, page 16 ↗:
      Habakkuk brought him a ſmooth, ſtrong, tough Rope, made of many a ply of vvholeſome Scandinavian Hemp, compactly tvviſted together, vvith a Nooſe that ſlip'd as glib as a Bird-catcher's Gin. Jack ſhrunk and grevv pale at firſt ſight of it, he handled it, meaſur'd it, ſtretch'd it, fix'd it againſt the Iron-bar of the VVindovv to try its ſtrength, but not Familiarity could reconcile him to it. He found fault vvith the length, the thickneſs, and the tvviſt, nay, the very colour did not pleaſe him.
  4. The degree of stress or strain when twisted.
  5. A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together.
    • 1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC ↗:
      the thrid
      By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine,
      That cruell Atropos eftsoones vndid,
      With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine […]
    • 1808–1810, William Hickey (memoirist), Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, page 140:
      I was one morning walking arm in arm with him in St James's Park, his dress then being […] waistcoat and breeches of the same blue satin, trimmed with silver twist à la hussarde, and ermine edges.
  6. A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.
    • 2005, Theodore J. Albasini, The Progeny:
      Bunny sat on the only remaining stool at the leather-padded oval bar in the Iron Lounge. It was happy hour, two drinks for the price of one. She decided on a martini with a twist, and while the bartender was preparing her drink, she scanned the faces looking at the bar.
  7. A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:
      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.
  8. A distortion to the meaning of a passage or word.
  9. An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc.
    • 2007 September 7, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 2, Episode 3:
      Roy: Oh no, now I know there's a twist. I'm gonna spend the whole film guessing what it is. Damn you, Dominator!
      Moss: Just try and forget that there's a twist.
      Roy: Oh, how can you forget there's a twist?...
      Douglas: Oh, I've heard of this flick. There's a twist in it, isn't there?... The Crying Game. No, Battlestar Galactica. The Invaders (The Twilight Zone). The Wizard of Oz (film)!... Bladerunner. The Prestige (film). The Sixth Sense.
  10. (preceded by definite article) A modern dance popular in Western culture in the late 1950s and 1960s, based on rotating the hips repeatedly from side to side. See Twist (dance) on Wikipedia for more details.
  11. A rotation of the body when diving.
  12. A sprain, especially to the ankle.
  13. (obsolete) A twig.
    • 1600, [Torquato Tasso], “The Thirteenth Booke of Godfrey of Bulloigne”, in Edward Fairefax [i.e., Edward Fairfax], transl., Godfrey of Bulloigne, or The Recouerie of Ierusalem. […], London: […] Ar[nold] Hatfield, for I[saac] Iaggard and M[atthew] Lownes, →OCLC ↗, stanza 5, page 235 ↗:
      No twiſt, no twig, no bough nor branch […]
  14. (slang) A girl, a woman.
    • 1990, Miller's Crossing, 01:08:20
      (Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops"
  15. A roll or baton of baked dough or pastry in a twisted shape.
  16. (countable, uncountable) A small roll of tobacco.
    • 1953, Samuel Beckett, Watt, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Grove Press, published 1959, →OCLC ↗:
      […] this Katie Byrne was a great favourite with Art and Con, to whom she always brought a gift of tobacco twist, when she came on a visit, and Art and Con were great chewers of tobacco twist, and never had enough, never never had enough tobacco twist, for their liking.
  17. A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together.
    Damascus twist
  18. The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
  19. (obsolete, slang) A beverage made of brandy and gin.
  20. A strong individual tendency or bent; inclination.
    a twist toward fanaticism
  21. (slang, archaic) An appetite for food.
    • 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter XXXV, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, →OCLC ↗:
      Hope you’ve brought good appetites with you, gentlemen. You, Doolan, I know ave, for you’ve always ad a deuce of a twist.
    • 1861, The Farmer's Magazine, page 40:
      He [the yearling bull] had a good handsome male head, and he had a capital twist. He had a spring in his rib, and was something over seven feet in girth. He was well covered, and had all the recommendations of quality, symmetry, and size.
  22. Short for hair twist.
    • 2021, Becky S. Li, Howard I. Maibach, Ethnic Skin and Hair and Other Cultural Considerations, page 154:
      The physician should evaluate for a history of tight ponytails, buns, chignons, braids, twists, weaves, cornrows, dreadlocks, sisterlocks, and hair wefts in addition to the usage of religious hair coverings.
Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations Translations
  • German: Wendung
  • Italian: colpo di scena
Translations Translations Verb

twist (twists, present participle twisting; simple past and past participle twisted)

  1. To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force.
  2. To join together by twining one part around another.
    • 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 ↗:
      "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."
  3. To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
    • June 8, 1714, Alexander Pope, letter to Jonathan Swift
      twisting it into a serpentine form.
  4. To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
    • 1645, Edmund Waller, To my Lord of Falkland:
      longing to twist bays with that ivy
    • 1844, Robert Chambers, “Dr Thomas Burnet”, in Cyclopædia of English Literature:
      There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
  5. (reflexive) To wind into; to insinuate.
    Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
  6. To turn a knob etc.
  7. To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
    • 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 ↗:
      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?
  8. To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings).
  9. To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction.
    • 1901, Henry Lawson, Joe Wilson's Courtship:
      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.
    • 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 ↗:
      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.
  10. (intransitive, of a path) To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
    • 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter I, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC ↗:
      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.
    • 1926, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, He:
      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.
  11. (transitive) To cause to rotate.
    • 1911, John Masefield, chapter 8, in Jim Davis:
      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.
  12. (intransitive) To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
  13. (transitive) To coax.
    • 1932, Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai:
      "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? [...]"
  14. (card games) In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.
Translations Translations Translations Translations
Twist
Proper noun
  1. Surname.


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