different between twitch vs quake

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

English

Etymology

From Middle English quaken, from Old English cwacian (“to quake, tremble, chatter”), from Proto-Germanic *kwak?n? (“to shake, quiver, tremble”), from Proto-Indo-European *g?og- (“to shake, swing”), related to Old English cwe??an (“to shake, swing, move, vibrate, shake off, give up”) (see quitch), Dutch kwakkelen (“to ail, be ailing”), German Quackelei (“chattering”), Danish kvakle (“to bungle”), Latin v?x? (“toss, shake violently, jostle, vex”), Irish bogadh (“a move, movement, shift, change”).

Pronunciation

• (General American, Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /kwe?k/
• Rhymes: -e?k

Noun

quake (plural quakes)

1. A trembling or shaking.

   We felt a quake in the apartment every time the train went by.

2. An earthquake, a trembling of the ground with force.

   California is plagued by quakes; there are a few minor ones almost every month.

Translations

Verb

quake (third-person singular simple present quakes, present participle quaking, simple past and past participle quaked or (archaic) quoke or (obsolete) quook)

1. (intransitive) To tremble or shake.
   • 1575-86, Sir Philip Sidney, The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia

     Dorus threw Pamela behind a tree; where she stood quaking like the partridge on which the hawk is even ready to seize.
2. (intransitive, figuratively) To be in a state of fear, shock, amazement, etc., such as might cause one to tremble.

   • Turning back, then, toward the basement staircase, she began to grope her way through blinding darkness, but had taken only a few uncertain steps when, of a sudden, she stopped short and for a little stood like a stricken thing, quite motionless save that she quaked to her very marrow in the grasp of a great and enervating fear.

   • 1598-99, William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, Scene I

     If Cupid have not spent all his quiver in / Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

   • 1599-1602, William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act III, Scene II

     Now could I drink hot blood / And do such bitter business as the bitter day / Would quake to look on.

   • 1591, William Shakespeare, Henry VI, part 2, Act IV, Scene VIII

     Who honours not his father, Henry the fifth, that made all France to quake, Shake he his weapon at us, and pass by.

   • Son of man, eat thy bread with quaking, and drink thy water with trembling and carefulness.

Derived terms

• quakebreech
• quakebuttock
• Quaker

Translations

German

Pronunciation

Verb

quake

1. inflection of quaken:
   1. first-person singular present
   2. singular imperative
   3. first/third-person singular subjunctive I

Middle English

Verb

quake

1. Alternative form of quaken