different between plait vs twist

English

Etymology

From Middle English pleit, from Anglo-Norman pleit (compare Old French ploit), from Latin plect?, which is akin to Old Norse flétta (Danish flette) and to Russian ???????? (spletat?). Doublet of plight (“plait, fold”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ple?t/, /plæt/
• Homophones: plate, plat
• Rhymes: -æt
• Rhymes: -e?t

Noun

plait (plural plaits)

1. A flat fold; a doubling, as of cloth; a pleat.

   • the plaits and foldings of the drapery

2. A braid, as of hair or straw; a plat.

Related terms

• pleat

Translations

Further reading

• Plait in the Encyclopædia Britannica (11th edition, 1911)

Verb

plait (third-person singular simple present plaits, present participle plaiting, simple past and past participle plaited)

1. (transitive) To fold; to double in narrow folds; to pleat

2. (transitive) To interweave the strands or locks of; to braid

Translations

Anagrams

• Patil, Pilat, lapti

French

Verb

plait

1. Post-1990 spelling of plaît (third-person singular present indicative of plaire)

Anagrams

• pilât, pliât

Middle English

Etymology

From Old French plait, plet.

Noun

plait (plural plaits)

1. Alternative form of ple

Old French

Alternative forms

Etymology

From Latin placitum (“decree”).

Noun

plait m (oblique plural plaiz or plaitz, nominative singular plaiz or plaitz, nominative plural plait)

1. agreement
2. argument; dispute
3. court (of law)
4. plea; ask; demand

Related terms

• plaidier

Descendants

• ? Middle English: plait
  • English: plea
  • Scots: plaid

References

• Godefroy, Frédéric, Dictionnaire de l'ancienne langue française et de tous ses dialectes du IX^e au XV^e siècle (1881) (plait)
• plai on the Anglo-Norman On-Line Hub

English

Etymology

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”).

Pronunciation

• enPR: tw?st, IPA^(key): /tw?st/, [tw??st]
• Rhymes: -?st

Noun

twist (plural twists)

1. A twisting force.
2. Anything twisted, or the act of twisting.
   • 1906, Edith Nesbit, The Railway Children Chapter 8

     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.

3. The form given in twisting.
   • 1712, John Arbuthnot, The History of John Bull

     [He] shrunk at first sight of it; he found fault with the length, the thickness, and the twist.

4. The degree of stress or strain when twisted.
5. A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together.
   • 1808–10, William Hickey, Memoirs of a Georgian Rake, Folio Society 1995, p. 140:

     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.

6. A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.
   • 2005, Theodore J. Albasini, The Progeny

     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.

7. A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc.
8. A distortion to the meaning of a word or passage.
9. An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc.
10. (preceded by definite article) A type of dance characterised by rotating one’s hips. See Twist (dance) on Wikipedia for more details.
11. A rotation of the body when diving.
12. A sprain, especially to the ankle.
13. (obsolete) A twig.

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

14. (slang) A girl, a woman.
    • 1990, Miller's Crossing, 01:08:20

      (Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops"

15. A roll or baton of baked dough or pastry in a twisted shape.
16. A small roll of tobacco.
17. A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together.

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.
    • 1861, The Farmer's Magazine (page 40)

      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.

Descendants

• German: Twist

Translations

Verb

twist (third-person singular simple present twists, present participle twisting, simple past and past participle twisted)

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.
   • 1900, L. Frank Baum, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Chapter 15

     "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."

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.
   • 1645, Edmund Waller, To my Lord of Falkland

     longing to twist bays with that ivy

   • 1844, Robert Chambers, "Dr Thomas Burnet" in Cyclopædia of English Literature

     There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.

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.
   • 1913, George Bernard Shaw, Pygmalion Act V

     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 don't care a bit for her. And you don't care a bit for me.

   • 1901, Henry Lawson, Joe Wilson's Courtship

     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.

10. (intransitive, of a path) To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
    • 1926, Howard Phillips Lovecraft, He

      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.

11. (transitive) To cause to rotate.
    • 1911, John Masefield, Jim Davis Chapter 8

      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.

12. (intransitive) To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
13. (transitive) To coax.
    • 1932, Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai

      "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? [...]"

14. (card games) In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.

Antonyms

(in blackjack, be dealt another card):: stick; stay

Translations

Derived terms

Anagrams

• twits, witts

Czech

Etymology

From English twist.

Noun

twist m

1. twist (dance)

Further reading

• twist in Kartotéka Novo?eského lexikálního archivu
• twist in Slovník spisovného jazyka ?eského, 1960–1971, 1989

Dutch

Etymology

From English twist.

Pronunciation

• Rhymes: -?st

Noun

twist m (uncountable, diminutive twistje n)

1. strife, discord
2. dispute
3. twist: dance, turn

Derived terms

• redetwist
• twistappel

Anagrams

• witst

Finnish

Etymology

From English twist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?twist/, [?t?wis?t?]
• IPA^(key): /?t?ist/, [?t??is?t?]
• Rhymes: -ist
• Syllabification: twist

Noun

twist

1. twist (dance)

Declension

Derived terms

• twistata

French

Etymology

From English twist.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /twist/

Noun

twist m (plural twists)

1. twist (dance)

Derived terms

• twister

Further reading

• “twist” in Trésor de la langue française informatisé (The Digitized Treasury of the French Language).

Middle English

Alternative forms

• twest, tweste, twyst, twyste

Etymology

Old English *twist, attested in compounds (e.g. mæsttwist (“a rope; stay”), candeltwist (“a wick”)), from Proto-Germanic *twistaz.

Noun

twist (plural twists)

1. the flat part of a hinge (less specifically the entire hinge)
2. a forked twig
3. a bifurcation
   1. the groin

Descendants

• English: twist

Related terms

• twisten (verb)

References

• “twist, n.”, in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007.

Portuguese

Etymology

From English twist.

Noun

twist m (uncountable)

1. twist (type of dance)

Spanish

Etymology

From English twist.

Noun

twist m (plural twists)

1. twist