twitch

Etymology 1

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

1. A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.
   I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying.
2. (informal) Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.
3. (farriery) 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.
   THE TWITCH is a short stick of strong ash, about the size of a mopstick, with a hole pierced near the end, through which is passed a piece of strong but small cord, and tied in a loop large enough to admit the open hand freely. 1861, John Henry Walsh, The Horse in the Stable and in the Field
4. (physiology) A brief, contractile response of a skeletal muscle elicited by a single maximal volley of impulses in the neurons supplying it.
5. (mining) The sudden narrowing almost to nothing of a vein of ore.
6. (birdwatching) A trip taken in order to observe a rare bird.

verb

1. (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm.
   His fingers were nervously twitching.
2. (transitive) To cause to twitch; spasm.
3. (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.
   to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention
4. (obsolete) To exert oneself.
5. (transitive) To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
   "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe." 1995, Quarterly Review of Biology, volume 70, page 348
   "But the key revelation from twitching that wonderful Iceland Gull on 10 March 1974 wasn't its eroticism. It was the sheer innocence of it." 2003, Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe, page 52
   "I hadn't seen John since I went to Adelaide to (unsuccessfully) twitch the '87 Northern Shoveler, when I was a skinny, eighteen-year-old kid. " 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time, page 119

Etymology 2

alternate of quitch

noun

1. couch grass (Elymus repens; a species of grass, often considered as a weed)