twitch

Definition from Wiktionary, a free dictionary

[edit] English

[edit] Pronunciation

• IPA: /twɪtʃ/
• Rhymes: -ɪtʃ

[edit] Noun

twitch (plural twitches)

1. A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.

[edit] Translations

[edit] Verb

to twitch (third-person singular simple present twitches, present participle twitching, simple past and past participle twitched)

1. (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm.

   • "Why is it that you twitch whenever I say Faith?" — [1]

2. (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.
3. (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. "

[edit] Translations

[edit] Usage notes

When used of birdwatchers by ignorant outsiders, this term frequently carries a negative connotation.

[edit] Derived terms

• atwitch