twist

noun

rotation of one stringy item around another
to change form, shape, etc, compression with a spiral motion

L13534 on Wikidata ↗

verb

to change form, shape, etc, compression with a spiral motion

L3569 on Wikidata ↗

Wiktionary

Pronunciation: /twɪst/ / [tw̥ɪst]

name

A surname.

noun

Etymology: PIE word *dwóh₁ From Middle English twist, from Old English *twist, in compounds (e.g. mæsttwist (“a rope; stay”), candeltwist (“a wick”)), from Proto-Germanic *twistaz, a derivative of *twi- (“two-”) (compare also twine, between, betwixt). Related to Saterland Frisian Twist (“discord”), Dutch twist (“twist; strife; discord”), German Low German Twist (“strife; discord”), German Zwist (“turmoil; strife; discord”), Swedish tvist (“quarrel; dispute”), Icelandic tvistur (“deuce”). The verb is from Middle English twisten. Compare Dutch twisten, Danish tviste (“to dispute”), Swedish tvista (“to argue; dispute”).

A twisting force.
Anything twisted, or the act of twisting.
“Peter was always proud afterwards when he remembered that, with the Bargee's furious fingers tightening on his ear, the Bargee's crimson countenance close to his own, the Bargee's hot breath on his neck, he had the courage to speak the truth. "I wasn't catching fish," said Peter. "That's not your fault, I'll be bound," said the man, giving Peter's ear a twist—not a hard one—but still a twist.”
“Not the least turn or twist in the fibres of any one animal which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture.”
The form given in twisting.
“Habakkuk brought him a ſmooth, ſtrong, tough Rope, made of many a ply of vvholeſome Scandinavian Hemp, compactly tvviſted together, vvith a Nooſe that ſlip'd as glib as a Bird-catcher's Gin. Jack ſhrunk and grevv pale at firſt ſight of it, he handled it, meaſur'd it, ſtretch'd it, fix'd it againſt the Iron-bar of the VVindovv to try its ſtrength, but not Familiarity could reconcile him to it. He found fault vvith the length, the thickneſs, and the tvviſt, nay, the very colour did not pleaſe him.”
The degree of stress or strain when twisted.
A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together.
“the thrid By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine, That cruell Atropos eftsoones vndid, With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine […]”
“I was one morning walking arm in arm with him in St James's Park, his dress then being […] waistcoat and breeches of the same blue satin, trimmed with silver twist à la hussarde, and ermine edges.”
A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.
“Bunny sat on the only remaining stool at the leather-padded oval bar in the Iron Lounge. It was happy hour, two drinks for the price of one. She decided on a martini with a twist, and while the bartender was preparing her drink, she scanned the faces looking at the bar.”
A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc.
“But here a twist in the stream brought us out from the bushes”
“I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.”
A distortion to the meaning of a passage or word.
An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc.
“I'm all agog at the new twist to the royal scandal.”
“Though set in Los Angeles, the film has a familiar, television look and feel - two handsome partners, cops, criminals, fast cars and a marginal romance. The twist in the buddy-car-chase formula is that here the good guys tend to blur into the bad.”
A modern dance popular in Western culture in the late 1950s and 1960s, based on rotating the hips repeatedly from side to side. See Twist (dance) on Wikipedia for more details.
“Come on, baby, let's do the twist Take me by my little hand and go like this”
“Out from his coffin, Drac's voice did ring Seems he was troubled by just one thing Opened the lid and shook his fist And said, "Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?" It's now the Mash It's now the Monster Mash.”
A rotation of the body when diving.
A sprain, especially to the ankle.
A twig.
“No twiſt, no twig, no bough nor branch […]”
A girl, a woman.
“James and Ruby danced over beside us. ‘Did you tell her?’ he asked, looking at me. I nodded. ‘Wait a minute,’ Gloria said, as they started to dance away. ‘What’s the big idea of talking behind my back?’ ‘Tell that twist to lay off me,’ James said, still speaking directly to me.”
“(Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops"”
A roll or baton of baked dough or pastry in a twisted shape.
A small roll of tobacco.
“We spent a lot of time up on the staging of the great furnaces, trying to pick up the tricks of the trade from the taciturn furnacemen who sat around placidly smoking, or chewing twist, and occasionally throwing in more pig iron to the molten white-hot metal.”
“[…] this Katie Byrne was a great favourite with Art and Con, to whom she always brought a gift of tobacco twist, when she came on a visit, and Art and Con were great chewers of tobacco twist, and never had enough, never never had enough tobacco twist, for their liking.”
A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together.
“Damascus twist”
The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
A beverage made of brandy and gin.
A strong individual tendency or bent; inclination.
“a twist toward fanaticism”
An appetite for food.
“Hope you’ve brought good appetites with you, gentlemen. You, Doolan, I know ave, for you’ve always ad a deuce of a twist.”
“He [the yearling bull] had a good handsome male head, and he had a capital twist. He had a spring in his rib, and was something over seven feet in girth. He was well covered, and had all the recommendations of quality, symmetry, and size.”
Ellipsis of hair twist.
“The physician should evaluate for a history of tight ponytails, buns, chignons, braids, twists, weaves, cornrows, dreadlocks, sisterlocks, and hair wefts in addition to the usage of religious hair coverings.”

verb

To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force.
To join together by twining one part around another.
“"Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted, so that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country."”
To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
“June 8, 1714, Alexander Pope, letter to Jonathan Swift twisting it into a serpentine form.”
To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
“longing to twist bays with that ivy”
“There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.”
To wind into; to insinuate.
“Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.”
To turn a knob etc.
To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
“Say I could succeed at the Bar, and achieve a fortune by bullying witnesses and twisting evidence; is that a fame which would satisfy my longings, or a calling in which my life would be well spent?”
To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings).
To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction.
“Then Romany went down, then we fell together, and the chaps separated us. I got another knock-down blow in, and was beginning to enjoy the novelty of it, when Romany staggered and limped. ‘I’ve done,’ he said. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ He’d caught his heel against a tuft of grass.”
“Oh, you are a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs Pearce warned me. Time and again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the last minute. And you dont care a bit for her. And you dont care a bit for me.”
To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
“I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.”
“My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration in the teeming labyrinths of ancient streets that twist endlessly from forgotten courts and squares and waterfronts to courts and squares and waterfronts equally forgotten, and in the Cyclopean modern towers and pinnacles that rise blackly Babylonian under waning moons, I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me.”
To cause to rotate.
“The tide seized us and swept us along, and in the races where this happened there were sucking whirlpools, strong enough to twist us round.”
To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
“Twist it in the alley With long tall Sally Twistin' with Lucy Doin' the watusi.”
To coax.
“"On the three-thousand-dollar reward John Bain is offerin' for the return of his sister," said Ace. "Now listen--I know a certain big Chinee had her kidnapped outa her 'rickshaw out at the edge of the city one evenin'. He's been keepin' her prisoner in his house, waitin' a chance to send her up-country to some bandit friends of his'n; then they'll be in position to twist a big ransome outa John Bain, see? [...]"”
In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.