twist

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments (7)  · 
“
A further twist was the advent of the Panamanian republic which permitted the canal to go through: French adventurer Philippe Bunau-Varilla executed a coup against Colombia in 1903 for "the greater glory of France," then, according to McCullough, promptly put the new nation and its treasury under the wardship of the US State Department and the House of Morgan respectively.

View all »
Definitions (129)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (38)

  1. transitive verb To wind together (two or more threads, for example) so as to produce a single strand.
  2. transitive verb To form in this manner: twist a length of rope from strands of hemp.
  3. transitive verb To wind or coil (vines or rope, for example) about something.
35 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (65)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (3)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (23)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples

  • At the place where the pressure of the twist was the great-est, a gaping, eye-shaped hole ran across the deck. —  The Waste Lands
  • A further twist was the advent of the Panamanian republic which permitted the canal to go through: French adventurer Philippe Bunau-Varilla executed a coup against Colombia in 1903 for "the greater glory of France," then, according to McCullough, promptly put the new nation and its treasury under the wardship of the US State Department and the House of Morgan respectively. —  Short Review
  • The reason for the twist is the same reason Cat 5 cable is twisted. —  eHam.net News
  • This twist is an extension of an ongoing scareware epidemic. —  Netflash
  • "In fact that comes over terribly well in this film," said the marketing girl, "and just gives it that poignant twist which is the hallmark of the really great documentary. —  The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
 

Tags

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

Twist has been looked up 368 times, favorited 0 times, listed 26 times, and commented on 7 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

turn ·  jerk ·  gesture ·  thrust ·  stroke ·  leap ·  kick ·  touch ·  grimace ·  thread ·  knot ·  curve
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English twisten, to squeeze, be divided, from twist, a divided object, fork, rope, from Old English -twist; see dwo- in Indo-European roots.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. from Middle English twist, from Anglo-Saxon twist (in comp. mæst-twist), a rope, = Middle Dutch twist, a forked branch, = Icelandic tvistr, the two or deuce in cards; also in another sense, = Dutch twist = Low German twist = Middle High German G. zwist = Swedish Danish tvist, discord, strife, odds, = Icelandic tvist, in the phrase ā tvist og bast, scattered to the four winds; with formative -st, from Anglo-Saxon twi-, etc., two: see twi-. Cf. twine, twin.
  2. from Middle English twisten, twysten = Middle Dutch twisten, twist; cf. Middle Dutch, Dutch twisten = Middle Low German Low German twisten = Swedish trista = Danish tviste, strive, quarrel, = Icelandic tvistra, divide, scatter; see twist, n.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/twɪst/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a week.

Recent Lookups

asthma · archangel · gazpacho · sequentially · rheostat

Recent Favorites

TelePalmter · Espoo · stick-to-it-iveness · supine · doxastic

Recent Pronunciations

milosrdenstvi · lichen-covered · futon · sagacity · monoragngocious