different between bounce vs twitch

English

Etymology

From Middle English bunsen (“to beat, thump”), perhaps imitative. Compare Low German bunsen (“to beat”), Dutch bonzen (“to thump, knock, throb”), and akin to bonken (“to bang, smash”), and possibly English bang.

Pronunciation

• enPR: bouns, IPA^(key): /ba?ns/
• Rhymes: -a?ns

Verb

bounce (third-person singular simple present bounces, present participle bouncing, simple past and past participle bounced)

1. (intransitive) To change the direction of motion after hitting an obstacle.

   The tennis ball bounced off the wall before coming to rest in the ditch.

2. (intransitive) To move quickly up and then down, or vice versa, once or repeatedly.

   He bounces nervously on his chair.
3. (transitive) To cause to move quickly up and down, or back and forth, once or repeatedly.

   He bounced the child on his knee.

   The children were bouncing a ball against a wall.

4. (transitive, colloquial) To suggest or introduce (an idea, etc.) to (off or by) somebody, in order to gain feedback.

   I'm meeting Bob later to bounce some ideas off him about the new product range.

5. (intransitive) To leap or spring suddenly or unceremoniously; to bound.

   She bounced happily into the room.

   • 1731, Jonathan Swift, On Mr. Pulteney's Being Put Out of the Council

     Out bounced the mastiff.

6. To move rapidly (between).
7. (intransitive, informal, of a cheque/check) To be refused by a bank because it is drawn on insufficient funds.

   We can’t accept further checks from you, as your last one bounced.

8. (transitive, informal) To fail to cover (have sufficient funds for) (a draft presented against one's account).

   He tends to bounce a check or two toward the end of each month, before his payday.

9. (intransitive, slang) To leave.

   Let’s wrap this up, I gotta bounce.

10. (US, slang, dated) To eject violently, as from a room; to discharge unceremoniously, as from employment.
    • 1946, Yachting (volume 80, page 46)

      Nobody took umbrage and bounced me out of the Union for being a pro.

11. (intransitive, slang, African-American Vernacular) (sometimes employing the preposition with) To have sexual intercourse.
12. (transitive, air combat) To attack unexpectedly.

    The squadron was bounced north of the town.

13. (intransitive, electronics) To turn power off and back on; to reset.

    See if it helps to bounce the router.

14. (intransitive, Internet, of an e-mail message) To return undelivered.

    What’s your new email address? The old one bounces.

    The girl in the bar told me her address was [email protected], but my mail to that address bounced back to me.

15. (intransitive, aviation) To land hard and lift off again due to excess momentum.

    The student pilot bounced several times during his landing.

16. (intransitive, skydiving) To land hard at unsurvivable velocity with fatal results.

    After the mid-air collision, his rig failed and he bounced.

17. (transitive, sound recording) To mix (two or more tracks of a multi-track audio tape recording) and record the result onto a single track, in order to free up tracks for further material to be added.

    Bounce tracks two and three to track four, then record the cowbell on track two.

18. (slang, archaic) To bully; to scold.

    (Can we find and add a quotation of J. Fletcher to this entry?)

19. (slang, archaic) To boast; to bluster.
20. (archaic) To strike or thump, so as to rebound, or to make a sudden noise; to knock loudly.
    • 1708, John Partridge, Squire Bickerstaff Detected

      Another bounces as hard as he can knock.

Synonyms

• (change direction of motion after hitting an obstacle): bounce back, rebound
• (move quickly up and down): bob
• (have sexual intercourse): bang, do it, have sex; see also Thesaurus:copulate

Derived terms

Translations

Noun

bounce (countable and uncountable, plural bounces)

1. A change of direction of motion after hitting the ground or an obstacle.
2. A movement up and then down (or vice versa), once or repeatedly.
3. (Internet) An email that returns to the sender because of a delivery failure.
4. The sack, licensing.
5. A bang, boom.
   • 1773, Oliver Goldsmith, She Stoops to Conquer

     I don't value her resentment the bounce of a cracker.

6. (archaic) A drink based on brandy^W.
7. (archaic) A heavy, sudden, and often noisy, blow or thump.
   • 1685, John Dryden, The Despairing Lover

     The bounce burst ope[sic] the door.

8. (archaic) Bluster; brag; untruthful boasting; audacious exaggeration; an impudent lie; a bouncer.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Johnson to this entry?)

   (Can we find and add a quotation of De Quincey to this entry?)

9. Scyliorhinus canicula, a European dogfish.
10. A genre of New Orleans music.
11. (slang, African-American Vernacular) Drugs.
12. (slang, African-American Vernacular) Swagger.
13. (slang, African-American Vernacular) A 'good' beat.
14. (slang, African-American Vernacular) A talent for leaping.

Synonyms

• (change of direction of motion after hitting an obstacle): rebound
• (movement up and down): bob, bobbing (repeated), bouncing (repeated)
• (talent for leaping): ups, mad ups

Derived terms

• bouncy
• on the bounce

Translations

References

English

Etymology 1

From Middle English twicchen, from Old English *twi??an, 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”), zweck?n and gizwickan (> German zwicken (“to pinch”)).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /tw?t??/, [t?w??t??]
• Rhymes: -?t?

Noun

twitch (countable and uncountable, plural twitches)

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

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.

   Synonym: barnacle

   • 1861, John Henry Walsh, The Horse in the Stable and in the Field

     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.

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.

Derived terms

• nervous twitch
• twitch game

Translations

References

• Twitch in The Free Dictionary (Medicine)

Verb

twitch (third-person singular simple present twitches, present participle twitching, simple past and past participle twitched)

1. (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm.

2. (transitive) To cause to twitch; spasm.
   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses...

3. (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.

   • Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.

4. (obsolete) To exert oneself. [15th-17th c.]
5. (transitive) To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
   • 1995, Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:

     "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."

   • 2003, Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe [1], ?ISBN, page 52:

     "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."

   • 2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time [2], ?ISBN, page 119:

     "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. "

Translations

Usage notes

When used of birdwatchers by ignorant outsiders, this term frequently carries a negative connotation.

Derived terms

• atwitch

Etymology 2

alternate of quitch

Noun

twitch (uncountable)

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

Translations