twist

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”).

noun

1. A twisting force.
2. 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. 1906, Edith Nesbit, chapter 8, in The Railway Children
3. The form given in twisting.
4. The degree of stress or strain when twisted.
5. A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together.
   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. 1808–1810, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, page 140
6. 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. 2005, Theodore J. Albasini, The Progeny
7. 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 1899, Edith Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods
8. A distortion to the meaning of a passage or word.
9. An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc.
   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. October 23, 1987, Caryn James, “Movie Review: No Man's Land (1987)”, in New York Times
   Roy: Oh no, now I know there's a twist. I'm gonna spend the whole film guessing what it is. Damn you, Dominator! / Moss: Just try and forget that there's a twist. / Roy: Oh, how can you forget there's a twist?... / Douglas: Oh, I've heard of this flick. There's a twist in it, isn't there?... I bet he's a woman, that bloke. No, you think it's the future, but it's actually set in the past. It's not Earth. It's all a dream!... They're all clones. He's his own brother. Everyone's a ghost. 2007 September 7, Graham Linehan, The IT Crowd, Season 2, Episode 3
   In the abstract, Stuhlbarg’s twinkly-eyed sidekick suggests Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 by way of late-period Robin Williams with an alien twist, but Stuhlbarg makes a character that easily could have come across as precious into a surprisingly palatable, even charming man. May 24, 2012, Nathan Rabin, “Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3”, in The A.V. Club
10. (preceded by definite article) A type of dance characterised by rotating one’s hips. 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 1958, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters (lyrics and music), “The Twist”
    She taught him to do the twist, having learned it herself from an Alvin Ailey dancer at Jacob's Pillow. April 22, 1997, Jennifer Dunning, “Surviving It All, Dismissals, Tours and Balanchine”, in New York Times
11. A rotation of the body when diving.
12. A sprain, especially to the ankle.
13. (obsolete) A twig.
14. (slang) 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. 1935, Horace McCoy, They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?, Serpent’s Tail, published 2011, page 19
    (Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops" 1990, Miller's Crossing, 01:08:20
15. A roll or baton of baked dough or pastry in a twisted shape.
16. (countable, uncountable) 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. 1945 January and February, A Former Pupil, “Some Memories of Crewe Works—III”, in Railway Magazine, page 14
17. A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together.
    Damascus twist
18. The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
19. (obsolete, slang) A beverage made of brandy and gin.
20. A strong individual tendency or bent; inclination.
    a twist toward fanaticism
21. (slang, archaic) An appetite for food.
    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. 1861, The Farmer's Magazine, page 40
22. Short for 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. 2021, Becky S. Li, Howard I. Maibach, Ethnic Skin and Hair and Other Cultural Considerations, page 154

verb

1. To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force.
2. To join together by twining one part around another.
3. 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.
4. To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
   longing to twist bays with that ivy 1645, Edmund Waller, To my Lord of Falkland
   There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame. 1844, Robert Chambers, “Dr Thomas Burnet”, in Cyclopædia of English Literature
5. (reflexive) To wind into; to insinuate.
   Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
6. To turn a knob etc.
7. To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
8. To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings).
9. 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. 1901, Henry Lawson, Joe Wilson's Courtship
10. (intransitive, of a path) 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. 1913, Joseph C. Lincoln, chapter 1, in Mr. Pratt's Patients
    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. 1926, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, He
11. (transitive) 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. 1911, John Masefield, chapter 8, in Jim Davis
12. (intransitive) To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
13. (transitive) 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? …" 1932, Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai
14. (card games) In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.