twiggen, made of osiers; cased with osiers or wicker-work; ‘A large basket or twiggen panier’, Holland, tr. of Pliny, b. xvii, c. 10, 5 § 1; Othello, ii. 3. 152. A Warw. word (EDD.).
twight, to ‘twit’, upbraid. Spenser, F. Q. v. 6. 12. ME. atwite, to reproach (Laȝamon). OE. ætwītan.
twight, to twitch, to pull suddenly; ‘No bit nor rein his tender jawes may twight’, Mirror for Mag. (Nares); used as pt. t. of twitch, touched, Phaer, tr. of Aeneid, iv. 259 (L. tetigit). ME. twykkyn, ‘tractulo’ (Prompt.). OE. twiccian, to pluck, catch hold of.
twin, to separate one from the other. The World and the Child, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, i. 244. So in Scotch use: ‘We should never twin again, except heaven twin’d and sundered us’, Rutherford’s Life (ed. 1761), 234, see EDD. (s.v. Twin, vb.2 2).
twin, to be twinned, to be closely united like twins; ‘True liberty . . . which always with right reason dwells twinned’, Milton, P. L. xii. 85; B. Jonson, Hue and Cry after Cupid (Vulcan).
twink, a twinkling. Tam. Shrew, ii. 1. 312; phr. with a twink, in a moment, Ferrex and Porrex, iv. 2 (Marcella). ‘In a twink’ is in use in various parts of England and Scotland, meaning in the shortest possible space of time (EDD.). ME. twynkyn wyth the eye, ‘nicto’ (Prompt.).
twire, to peep, to peep at intervals, to take a stolen glance at a thing; ‘When sparkling stars twire not’, Sonnet xxviii; ‘To see the common parent of us all, Which maids will twire at ’tween their fingers’, B. Jonson, Sad Sheph. ii. 1 (Maud); Drayton, Pol. xiii. 169; spelt tweer, ‘The tweering constable’, Middleton, Father Hubberd’s Tales (ed. Dyce, v. 594). A Wilts. and Berks. word, ‘How he did twire and twire at she!’ (EDD.). Cp. Germ. dial. (Bavarian) zwi(e)ren, to take a stolen glance at a thing (Schmeller).
twire pipe, a term of abuse; ‘An ass, a twire pipe, a Jeffery John Bo-peep’, Fletcher, Mons. Thomas, iii. 1 (Thomas). For twire, see above; pipe may be identified with the Yorks. word pipe, to glance at stealthily, see EDD. (s.v. Pipe, vb.2) = F. piper, ‘to peke or prie’ (Palsgrave). See Dict. (s.v. Peep, 2). So that twire pipe is a reduplicated word meaning a sly peeper.
twissell, the part of a tree where the branches divide from the stock; ‘As from a tree we sundrie times espie A twissell grow by Nature’s subtile might’, Turbervile, The Lover wisheth to be conjoined, st. 6. See EDD. (s.v. Twizzle, 8). OE. twislian, to fork, branch (Hom. ii. 117); ‘twisil tunge’ (double tongue, Ecclus. v. 14).
twitch-box, said to be the same as touch-box, a box containing powder for priming; to prime was to put a little gunpowder into the pan of an old-fashioned fire-arm. ‘Thy flask [powder-flask] and twitch-box’, Damon and Pithias, in Hazlitt’s Dodsley, iv. 67. See [touch-box].