different between shock vs twitch

English

Alternative forms

• choque (obsolete)

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /??k/
• (US) IPA^(key): /??k/
• Rhymes: -?k, -?k

Etymology 1

From Middle Dutch schokken (“to push, jolt, shake, jerk”) or Middle French choquer (“to collide with, clash”), from Old Dutch *skokkan (“to shake up and down, shog”), from Proto-Germanic *skukkan? (“to move, shake, tremble”). Of uncertain origin. Perhaps related to Proto-Germanic *skakan? (“to shake, stir”), from Proto-Indo-European *(s)kAg'-, *(s)keg- (“to shake, stir”); see shake. Cognate with Middle Low German schocken (“collide with, deliver a blow to, move back and forth”), Old High German scoc (“a jolt, swing”), Middle High German schocken (“to swing”) (German schaukeln), Old Norse skykkr (“vibration, surging motion”), Icelandic skykkjun (“tremulously”), Middle English schiggen (“to shake”). More at shog.

Noun

shock (countable and uncountable, plural shocks)

1. A sudden, heavy impact.
   1. (figuratively) Something so surprising that it is stunning.
   2. A sudden or violent mental or emotional disturbance.
   3. (medicine) Electric shock, a sudden burst of electrical energy hitting a person or animal.
   4. (medicine) Circulatory shock, a medical emergency characterized by the inability of the circulatory system to supply enough oxygen to meet tissue requirements.
   5. (physics) A shock wave.

2. (mathematics) A discontinuity arising in the solution of a partial differential equation.

Synonyms

See Thesaurus:surprise

Derived terms

Descendants

• ? Japanese: ???? (shokku)
• ? Korean: ?? (syokeu)

Translations

Verb

shock (third-person singular simple present shocks, present participle shocking, simple past and past participle shocked)

1. (transitive) To cause to be emotionally shocked, to cause (someone) to feel surprised and upset.

2. (transitive) To give an electric shock to.
3. (obsolete, intransitive) To meet with a shock; to collide in a violent encounter.
   • 1832, Thomas De Quincey, Klosterheim Or, the Masque

     They saw the moment approach when the two parties would shock together.

Translations

References

• John A. Simpson and Edward S. C. Weiner, editors (1989) , “shock”, in The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edition, Oxford: Clarendon Press, ?ISBN

Etymology 2

Variant of shag.

Noun

shock (plural shocks)

1. An arrangement of sheaves for drying; a stook.
   • 1557, Thomas Tusser, Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry

     Cause it on shocks to be by and by set.

   • Behind the master walks, builds up the shocks.

2. (commerce, dated) A lot consisting of sixty pieces; a term applied in some Baltic ports to loose goods.
3. (by extension) A tuft or bunch of something, such as hair or grass.

   His head boasted a shock of sandy hair.

4. (obsolete) A small dog with long shaggy hair, especially a poodle or spitz; a shaggy lapdog.
   • 1827 Thomas Carlyle, The Fair-Haired Eckbert

     When I read of witty persons, I could not figure them but like the little shock. (translating the German Spitz)

Verb

shock (third-person singular simple present shocks, present participle shocking, simple past and past participle shocked)

1. (transitive) To collect, or make up, into a shock or shocks; to stook.

Anagrams

• Kosch, hocks

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English shock.

Noun

shock m (invariable)

1. shock (medical; violent or unexpected event)

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English shock.

Noun

shock m (plural shocks)

1. shock

Derived terms

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