twitch
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
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[edit] English
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Noun
twitch (plural twitches)
- 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.
- (informal) Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.
[edit] Derived terms
[edit] Translations
brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again
[edit] Verb
twitch (third-person singular simple present twitches, present participle twitching, simple past and past participle twitched)
- (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm.
-
- "Why is it that you twitch whenever I say Faith?" — [1]
- 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit
- Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses...
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- (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.
- (transitive) To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
- 1995, Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:
- "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."
- 2003, Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe [2], ISBN 0802139965, page 52:
- "But the key revelation from twitching that wonderful Iceland Gull on 10 March 1974 wasn't its eroticism. It was the sheer innocence of it."
- 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time [3], ISBN 1741145287, page 119:
- "I hadn't seen John since I went to Adelaide to (unsuccessfully) twitch the '87 Northern Shoveler, when I was a skinny, eighteen- year-old kid. "
- 1995, Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:
[edit] Translations
[edit] Usage notes
When used of birdwatchers by ignorant outsiders, this term frequently carries a negative connotation.
