different between wiggle vs twitch

English

Etymology

From Middle English wiglen, probably from Middle Dutch wigelen (“to wiggle”) and perhaps Middle Low German wigelen, frequentative of wiegen (“to rock”), from wiege (“cradle”). See wain, and Dutch wieg (“cradle”).

Cognate to Dutch wiggelen (“to wiggle”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?w???l/
• Rhymes: -???l
• Hyphenation: wig?gle

Verb

wiggle (third-person singular simple present wiggles, present participle wiggling, simple past and past participle wiggled)

1. (transitive, intransitive) To move with irregular, back and forward or side to side motions; To shake or jiggle.

   Her hips wiggle as she walks.

   The jelly wiggles on the plate when you move it.

Translations

Noun

wiggle (plural wiggles)

1. A rapid movement in alternating opposite directions, not necessarily regular.

   She walked with a sexy wiggle.

2. (figuratively) An alternating state or characteristic. (Can we add an example for this sense?)
3. (in the plural) See wiggles.

Translations

Derived terms

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