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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

twitch.

A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.

6 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/twɪt͡ʃ/[tʰw̥ɪt͡ʃ]
  1. A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.

    countable · uncountable
    I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying.
  2. Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.

    countable · informal · uncountable
  3. A stick with a hole in one end through which passes a loop, which can be drawn tightly over the upper lip or an ear of a horse and twisted to keep the animal quiet during minor surgery.

    countable · uncountable
  4. A brief, contractile response of a skeletal muscle elicited by a single maximal volley of impulses in the neurons supplying it.

    countable · uncountable
  5. The sudden narrowing almost to nothing of a vein of ore.

    countable · uncountable
  6. A trip taken in order to observe a rare bird.

    countable · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Middle English twicchen, from Old English *twiċċan, from Proto-West Germanic *twikkijan (“to nail, pin, fasten, clasp, pinch”). Cognate with English tweak, Low German twikken, German Low German twicken (“to pinch, pinch off”), zweckōn and gizwickan (> German zwicken (“to pinch”)).

verb/twɪt͡ʃ/[tʰw̥ɪt͡ʃ]
  1. To perform a twitch; spasm.

    intransitive
    His fingers were nervously twitching.
  2. To cause to twitch; spasm.

    transitive
  3. To jerk sharply and briefly.

    transitive
    to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention
  4. To exert oneself.

    obsolete
  5. To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.

    transitive
  6. To engage in twitching.

    intransitive
Where this word comes from

From Middle English twicchen, from Old English *twiċċan, from Proto-West Germanic *twikkijan (“to nail, pin, fasten, clasp, pinch”). Cognate with English tweak, Low German twikken, German Low German twicken (“to pinch, pinch off”), zweckōn and gizwickan (> German zwicken (“to pinch”)).

noun/twɪt͡ʃ/[tʰw̥ɪt͡ʃ]
  1. couch grass (Elymus repens; a species of grass, often considered as a weed)

    uncountable
Where this word comes from

alternate of quitch

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.