Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun A young shoot representing the current season's growth of a woody plant.
- noun Any small, leafless branch of a woody plant.
- noun The current style; the fashion.
- intransitive verb To observe or notice.
- intransitive verb To understand or figure out.
- intransitive verb To be or become aware of the situation; understand.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun In anatomy, one of the minute branches of a blood-vessel.
- To twitch; jerk.
- noun A twitch; a jerk; a quick, sudden pull.
- To notice; observe narrowly; watch.
- To comprehend; understand; perceive; discover.
- To understand; see; “catch on.
- noun A small shoot of a tree or other plant; a small branch; a spray.
- noun A divining-rod.
- noun In ceramics, a thin strip of prepared clay used in modeling a pottery vessel, especially in the imitation basket work common in Leeds pottery.
- To switch; beat.
- To be vigorous or active; be energetic
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun A small shoot or branch of a tree or other plant, of no definite length or size.
- noun (Zoöl.) any one of several species of small beetles which bore into twigs of shrubs and trees, as the apple-tree
twig borer (Amphicerus bicaudatus ). - noun (Zoöl.) See
Girdler , 3. - noun (Bot.) any rushlike plant of the genus Cladium having hard, and sometimes prickly-edged, leaves or stalks. See Saw grass, under
Saw . - transitive verb Obs. or Scot. To twitch; to pull; to tweak.
- transitive verb colloq. To understand the meaning of; to comprehend; as, do you
twig me? - transitive verb To observe slyly; also, to perceive; to discover.
- transitive verb To beat with twigs.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun A small thin
branch of atree orbush . - verb transitive To
beat with twigs. - verb colloquial, regional To
realise something; to 'catch on'.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- verb branch out in a twiglike manner
- noun a small branch or division of a branch (especially a terminal division); usually applied to branches of the current or preceding year
- verb understand, usually after some initial difficulty
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
Support
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Examples
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When describing my shape, the word twig comes to mind.
Love Undercover Jo Edwards 2006
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When describing my shape, the word twig comes to mind.
Love Undercover Jo Edwards 2006
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Each collects a cedar twig from the top of a tree, four equilateral triangular cuts are made with an archaic stone knife, and the twig is snapped off.
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And, what if the attendant were no longer laughing, but had snapped his twig from the grief of working in this place?
Hello, I'm the daughter of the broken skeleton in room 36B. Meg Pokrass 2010
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How ya gonna keep your feet on the ground, when you Grow Up surrounded by hype and hoopla … As the twig is bent, moreso is the adult …
Tragic. 2009
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I pulled a twig from the jar I had brought and handed it to him.
365 tomorrows » 2008 » August : A New Free Flash Fiction SciFi Story Every Day 2008
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An article in Kuwait This Month featured the miswak, a twig from the saltbush tree that is employed as a natural toothbrush.
The Backside of War P. J. O'Rourke 2003
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An article in Kuwait This Month featured the miswak, a twig from the saltbush tree that is employed as a natural toothbrush.
The Backside of War P. J. O'Rourke 2003
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And in her practical way she scraped together a small square of dust, and with a twig from a pigeons nest began drawing a map on the floor.
Nineteen Eighty-Four 1949
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She broke a twig from a currant bush and scratched in the dust.
The House of Arden Edith 1923
sionnach commented on the word twig
Irish slang: to understand, from the Gaelic verb "tuig", to understand
February 23, 2007
yarb commented on the word twig
I twigged it, knew it; had had the gift, might readily have prophesied it--for when I clapped my eye upon his skull I saw it.
- Melville, Moby-Dick, ch. 39
July 25, 2008
ruzuzu commented on the word twig
Usage example on sachets of lexicographical magic dust.
November 27, 2010
fbharjo commented on the word twig
that twiggered petite pulverized pumice. Pulverized pumice is crushed, clear crystals. Is that crystal clear?
November 27, 2010
tbtabby commented on the word twig
Slang for a radio antenna.
March 5, 2018