twig
Contents
English[edit]
Etymology 1[edit]
From Middle English twig, twyg, from Old English twīg, from Proto-Germanic *twīgą (compare West Frisian twiich, Dutch twijg, German Zweig), from Proto-Indo-European *dwigʰa- (compare Old Church Slavonic двигъ (dvigŭ, “branch”), Albanian degë (“branch”)), from *dwóh₁. More at two.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
twig (plural twigs)
- A small thin branch of a tree or bush.
- They used twigs and leaves as a base to start the fire.
- 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict[1]:
- A beech wood with silver firs in it rolled down the face of the hill, and the maze of leafless twigs and dusky spires cut sharp against the soft blueness of the evening sky.
Synonyms[edit]
Derived terms[edit]
Translations[edit]
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Verb[edit]
twig (third-person singular simple present twigs, present participle twigging, simple past and past participle twigged)
- (transitive) To beat with twigs.
Etymology 2[edit]
From Irish and Scottish Gaelic tuig (“to understand”).
Verb[edit]
twig (third-person singular simple present twigs, present participle twigging, simple past and past participle twigged)
- (colloquial, regional) To realise something; to catch on.
- He hasn't twigged that we're planning a surprise party for him.
- 2012 May 30, John E. McIntyre, “A future for copy editors”, in Baltimore Sun[2]:
- Well, with fewer people doing two or three times the work, you may have already twigged to this.
- To understand the meaning of (a person); to comprehend.
- Do you twig me?
- To observe slyly; also, to perceive; to discover.
- Foote
- Now twig him; now mind him.
- Hawthorne
- as if he were looking right into your eyes and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal
- Foote
Translations[edit]
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Etymology 3[edit]
Compare tweak.
Verb[edit]
twig (third-person singular simple present twigs, present participle twigging, simple past and past participle twigged)
Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for twig in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)
Middle English[edit]
Alternative forms[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Old English twīg, from Proto-Germanic *twīgą.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
twig (plural twigges)
- Any part of a tree, especially a branch or cutting:
- (figuratively, rare) A subtype or part of something; the result or descendant of something.
Descendants[edit]
References[edit]
- “twig (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-08.
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- English terms derived from Proto-Indo-European
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- English lemmas
- English nouns
- English countable nouns
- Undetermined terms with quotations
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- English terms derived from Irish
- English terms derived from Scottish Gaelic
- English colloquialisms
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- Scottish English
- Webster 1913
- en:Trees
- Middle English terms inherited from Old English
- Middle English terms derived from Old English
- Middle English terms inherited from Proto-Germanic
- Middle English terms derived from Proto-Germanic
- Middle English terms with IPA pronunciation
- Middle English lemmas
- Middle English nouns
- Middle English terms with rare senses
- enm:Botany
- enm:Crafts
- enm:Trees