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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. v. To utter a succession of light chirping or tremulous sounds; chirrup.
  2. v. To speak rapidly and in a tremulous manner: twittering over office gossip.
  3. v. To giggle nervously; titter.
  4. v. To tremble with nervous agitation or excitement.
  5. v. To utter or say with a twitter: twittered a greeting.
  6. n. The light chirping sound made by certain birds.
  7. n. A similar sound, especially light, tremulous speech or laughter.
  8. n. Agitation or excitement; flutter.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

  1. n. A gardeners' name for certain plant-deformations caused by insects, notably a curious bunching and twisting of the carnation-plant caused by the work of anthomyiid larvæ. Some forms of twitter are caused by thrips and others by plantlice.
  2. To utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird; sing in bird-notes; chirp.
  3. To titter; giggle.
  4. To quiver; tremble; palpitate; hence, to be in a flutter or fright.
  5. To sing or utter in bird-notes; chirp out.
  6. To spin unevenly.
  7. n. A chirp or series of chirps, as of a bird, especially the swallow.
  8. n. A fit of laughter; a titter.
  9. n. A tremble; a flutter; a general excitement; a pother: as, to be in (or of) a twitter, or to be in or on the twitters.
  10. n. One who twits or reproaches.
  11. n. A shred; a fragment: used in the plural.
  12. n. The refuse or residuum of the case of the spermwhale, a gummy and thready substance left when the case is squeezed.

Wiktionary

  1. n. The sound of a succession of chirps as uttered by birds.
  2. v. To utter a succession of bird's chirps.
  3. v. To talk in an excited or nervous manner.
  4. v. To use the microblogging service Twitter.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. One who twits, or reproaches; an upbraider.
  2. v. To make a succession of small, tremulous, intermitted noises.
  3. v. To make the sound of a half-suppressed laugh; to titter; to giggle.
  4. v. To have a slight trembling of the nerves; to be excited or agitated.
  5. v. To utter with a twitter.
  6. n. The act of twittering; a small, tremulous, intermitted noise, as that made by a swallow.
  7. n. A half-suppressed laugh; a fit of laughter partially restrained; a titter; a giggle.
  8. n. A slight trembling or agitation of the nerves.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a series of chirps
  2. v. make high-pitched sounds, as of birds

Etymologies

  1. Middle English twiteren, ultimately of imitative origin.

Examples

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘twitter’.

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  • ruzuzu Here's a retweet posted on Twitter by @SonofGroucho: "RT @MrsStephenFry: Finally, I've created a healthy social network site - I Can't Believe It's Not Twitter." (Fri, Nov 5, 2010)
    Nov 6, 2010

  • Aliss There's gonna be a lot of puns on this one. Sep 15, 2010

  • chained_bear A pretty serious breach of Twitter etiquette. Sep 1, 2009

  • reesetee Aha! So I wasn't the only one being driven crazy by Facebook! Aug 6, 2009

  • chained_bear SSSSH!!! They might hear you! Aug 6, 2009

  • john Been down all morning, and Facebook is under attack too. I'm feeling kind of left out that Wordie wasn't targeted. Aug 6, 2009

  • lea Dogs tweet at twitter, too. Jun 16, 2009

  • reesetee Ha! Apr 17, 2009

  • john Best definition ever: “Twitter seems to be, first and foremost, an online haven where teenagers making drugs can telegraph secret code words to arrange gang fights and orgies. It also functions as a vehicle for teasing peers until they commit suicide.�?

    McSweeney's Internet Tendency, Truly Groundbreaking Marketing Research: Understanding Twitter, by Dan Kennedy, March 31, 2009 Apr 15, 2009

  • valse I promptly twittered about that youtube vid after seeing it :p Mar 28, 2009

  • lea It's worth a song. I agree. Don't go if you hate YouTube, too. Some people do. Mar 28, 2009

  • nuxiy Obsessive-compulsive Twittering Mar 26, 2009

  • nuxiy Haha Mar 26, 2009

  • lea Twitter horror. Mar 26, 2009

  • nettys And follow me - @nettys Mar 25, 2009

  • artoparts Does anybody on Wordie use a Chumby for Twitter? Feb 18, 2009

  • reesetee There, there. It happens to all of us. Jan 5, 2009

  • kewpid I confess, the holidays have made me a little light-headed ;) Jan 2, 2009

  • reesetee What? Logic on Wordie? Have you gone mad, kewpid? ;-> Dec 31, 2008

  • kewpid Yes, I mean how does a word/list get chosen to be featured on the Wordiefeed?

    I like to think there's a method behind the madness :) Dec 30, 2008

  • chained_bear I guess it makes people go see lists/words/comments that John finds particularly remarkable...?

    Or do you mean the Twitter Wordiefeed? Dec 30, 2008

  • kewpid What's the logic behind the Wordie Twitterfeed? Dec 30, 2008

  • whichbe What Are We Twittering? May 23, 2008

  • frindley A leading lexicographer uses twitter almost exclusively as a simple "word of the day" catcher. It's pretty cool. You can follow her (emckean) or, if using a mobile or IM, just track wotd to get her posts and a bunch from other people who are doing the same thing. If you send your wotd to twitter preface it with "wotd:" and anyone tracking that keyword will see it too. Mar 19, 2008

  • jrome Follow Jrome on Twitter: http://twitter.com/jrome Feb 6, 2008

  • jrome "But we should understand that for many ideas enabled by the Internet, small is the new big." - January 3, 2008, 3:45 pm
    Twitter, Firefox and Big Ideas That Are Small Companies

    By Saul Hansell

    Tags: Business Models, firefox, microblogging, Mozilla, twitter
    Feb 6, 2008

  • john Follow Wordie on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Wordie. Sep 4, 2007

‘twitter’ has been looked up 2255 times, loved by 3 people, added to 61 lists, commented on 27 times, and has a Scrabble score of 10.