different between twiddle vs frob

English

Etymology

Unknown. Perhaps a blend of twirl, twist, or twitch +? fiddle.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?tw?d?l/

Verb

twiddle (third-person singular simple present twiddles, present participle twiddling, simple past and past participle twiddled)

1. (transitive) To wiggle, fidget or play with; to move around.
   • 1942, Emily Carr, The Book of Small, “Singing,”^[1]

     The harder Small sang, the harder the cow chewed and the faster she twiddled her ears around as if stirring the song into the food to be rechewed in cud along with her breakfast.

2. (transitive, computing) To flip or switch two adjacent bits (binary digits).

   Coordinate term: diddle

3. (transitive, mathematics) To be in an equivalence relation with.
4. (intransitive) To play with anything; hence, to be busy about trifles.

Derived terms

• twiddle one's thumbs
• twiddler
• twiddlesome
• twiddling line

Translations

Noun

twiddle (plural twiddles)

1. A slight twist with the fingers.
2. (Britain, dialectal) A pimple.

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

3. A small decorative embellishment.
4. A small musical flourish.
5. A tilde.
6. A drawn line that is curvy or twisted.
7. A tiny bit
8. A tizzy

References

Anagrams

• twidled

English

Etymology

Clipping of frobnicate, from frobnitz, coined circa 1958 by David R. Sawyer of the MIT Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC). Year of origin uncertain, and could be 1958–1981: frob is not listed in the TMRC dictionaries of 1959 or 1960, and is first listed in the Jargon File (1981 edition), so it may date from the 1960s or 1970s. Possibly variant of or influenced by frotsus (“a protruding arm or trunnion”), which is listed in TMRC 1959 and 1960.

Noun

frob (plural frobs)

1. (MIT) Any small device or object (usually hand-sized) which can be manipulated.

   Hand me that frob there, will you?

Verb

frob (third-person singular simple present frobs, present participle frobbing, simple past and past participle frobbed)

1. (computing, slang, rare, transitive) To manipulate in some ill-defined way; to tweak or mess about with.
   • 1995, Wayne Ause, Instant HTML Web Pages (page 29)

     I sketched about 30 different versions, then scanned them in and played around until I got it right, then frobbed it with Photoshop.

2. (Silicon Valley, slang) To perform a task that is clear to the speaker but too complex or tedious to be explained, so that outside help is not helpful.

   Why don't you go get lunch? I need to frob with this thing for about 30 minutes and then we'll be good to go.

Usage notes

Sometimes contrasted with twiddle and tweak: frob for aimless manipulation, twiddle for coarse manipulation, and tweak for fine manipulation.

Related terms

• frobnicate
• frobnitz

See also

• futz
• tweak
• twiddle

References

References

• frob, in The New Hacker's Dictionary, 1996, by Eric S. Raymond.
• Eric S[teven] Raymond, editor (29 December 2003) , “frob”, in The Jargon File, version 4.4.7
• Eric S[teven] Raymond, editor (29 December 2003) , “frobnicate”, in The Jargon File, version 4.4.7

Anagrams

• forb