twinge
English
Etymology
From (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Old English twengan, from (deprecated template usage) [etyl] Proto-Germanic *þwinganą, related to *þwangiz (“clamp, strap”). Compare German zwingen (“to force”)
Pronunciation
Noun
twinge (plural twinges)
- A pinch; a tweak; a twitch.
- A sudden sharp pain.
- I got a twinge in my arm.
- 1935, Francis Beeding, “7/2”, in The Norwich Victims[1]:
- The two Gordon setters came obediently to heel. Sir Oswald Feiling winced as he turned to go home. He had felt a warning twinge of lumbago.
Translations
a pinch; a tweak; a twitch
sudden sharp pain
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Verb
twinge (third-person singular simple present twinges, present participle twingeing or twinging, simple past and past participle twinged)
- (transitive) To pull with a twitch; to pinch; to tweak.
- Hudibras
- When a man is past his sense, / There's no way to reduce him thence, / But twinging him by the ears or nose, / Or laying on of heavy blows.
- Hudibras
- (transitive) To affect with a sharp, sudden pain; to torment with pinching or sharp pains.
- L'Estrange
- The gnat […] twinged him [the lion] till he made him tear himself, and so mastered him.
- L'Estrange
- (intransitive) To have a sudden, sharp, local pain, like a twitch; to suffer a keen, darting, or shooting pain.
- My side twinges.
Translations
a sudden sharp pain
References
- Oxford English Dictionary, 1884–1928, and First Supplement, 1933.