twist 
described by an object so moving: as, the twist 
given to a ball in pitching causes it to curve ; 
the twist of a billiard-ball in play. 
If he had only allowed for the twist ! but he hasn't, and 
so the ball goes spinning up straight in the air. 
T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, ii. 8. 
The screw or twist [in billiards] is made by striking the 
ball low down, with a sharp, sudden blow. 
Encyc. Brit., III. 676. 
It is the twists in the rods that cause the figure to ap- 
pear in the barrels, and all iron so twisted is called Da- 
mascus. W. IF. Greener, The Gun, p. 226. 
8. Specifically, in firearms (a) The spiral 
formed by a groove in a rifled piece; the in- 
clination of the grooves of a rifled piece to the 
axis of the bore. 
Some of the rifles and rifled ordnance in the service are 
made with grooves which have a very slight twist at the 
breech, but the tu-ist is increased regularly until it reaches 
the muzzle ; this is known as the increasing or gaining 
twist. Farrow, Mil. Encyc., I. 727. 
If the angle of inclination be equal at all points, the 
twist is said to be uniform. ... If the angle increases 
from the breech to the muzzle, the twist is called increas- 
ing ; if the reverse, decreasing. 
Tidbalt, Manual of Artillery, p. 38. 
(6) Iron and steel twisted and welded together, 
used as a material for gun-barrels. 9. In arch., 
the wind of the bed-joint of every course of 
voussoirs in a skew arch. 10. In rope, cord- 
age, and the like, the way in which the spiral 
strands are laid, the number of strands, the 
degree of turn of the spiral, etc. : as, these two 
ropes differ in their twist. 11. A convolu- 
tion ; a curve ; a flexure ; a bend or turn. 
Unkus, alias Okoco, the Monahegan sachem in the twist 
of Pequod River, came to Boston with thirty-seven men. 
Winthrop, Hist. New England, I. 319. 
Knowing every twist and turn of rock, our drivel's 
brought us at the camping-time almost to the verge of 
the chaparral. It. D. Blackmore, Erema, Iviii. 
12. A turning about, as on a pivot or axis; a 
turn ; a twirl. 
A wink of his eye, and a twist of his head, 
Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread. 
C. C. Moore, A Visit from St. Nicholas. 
13. A -wresting out of place; distortion; a 
wrench; a strain. 
Which ligament keeps the two parts of the Joint so 
firmly in their place that . . . none of the Jerks and 
twists to which it [the limb] is ordinarily liable . . . can 
pull them asunder. Paley, Nat. Theol., viii. 
Generally, it was after a number of twistings in both 
ways, from the initial position of no twist, that the tran- 
sient current settled to its final value. 
PhUos. Mag., London, 5th ser., XXIX. 124. 
14. Figuratively, a peculiar bent, turn, or 
cast; a variation or perversion from the usual 
or normal type. 
Heads with some diverting twist in them the oddities 
of authorship please me most. Lamb, Mackery End. 
An exclusively scientific training will bring about a 
mental twist as surely as an exclusively literary training. 
Huxley, Science and Culture. 
You might have called him, with his humorous twist, 
A kind of human entomologist. 
Lamed, Fitz Adam's Story. 
15. An appetite for food. HaUiwell. [Prov. 
Eng.] 16. A mixed drink, generally named 
from the spirit with which it is compounded. 
[Eng.] 
When he went to the Back Kitchen that night, ... the 
gin-twist and devilled turkey had no charms for him. 
Thackeray, Pendennis, xxxix. 
17. In dynam., a twist-velocity. 18. In math.: 
(a) A torsional strain or distortion. (6) A dis- 
placement along and around a screw; a trans- 
lation combined with a rotation round an axis 
parallel to the direction of translation ; in the 
non-Euclidean geometry, a compound of two 
rotations about conjugate polars to the ab- 
solute Damascus twist. See damascus. Gaining 
twist. Sameast'ncrawe-fwisi. Grape-vine twist See 
grape-vine. Ramp and twist. See romp. Slack 
twist, a loose twist. Twist drill. See drilli. Twist 
Of tne Wrist, the movements of pronation and supiua- 
tion, which bring the hand quickly into various posi- 
tions; hence, quick and adroit use of the hand; dex- 
terity ; knack. 
twist (twist), v. [< ME. twisten, twystcn = MD. 
twisten, twist; of. MD. D. twisten = MLG. LG. 
twisten = Sw. tvista = Dan. tviste, strive, quar- 
rel, = Icel. tmstra, divide, scatter : see twist, n.~\ 
I. trans. 1. To unite, as two or more strands 
or filaments, by winding one about another; 
hence, to form by twining or rolling into a 
single thread; spin. 
The smallest thread 
That ever spider twisted from her womb. 
Shalt., K. John, iv. 3. 128. 
It was worth while to hear the croaking and hollow tones 
of the old lady, and the pleasant voice of Phoebe min- 
gling in one twisted thread of talk. 
Hawthorne, Seven Gables, v. 
6556 
2. To intertwine ; interweave ; combine. 
Falsehood is strangely joined and twisted along with 
truth. Bacon, Physical Fables, ii., Expl. 
Let earth and hell conspire their worst, their best, 
And Join their tmsU'd might. 
Quarles, Emblems, ii. 12. 
His [God's] great intention was to twist our duty and our 
happiness together. Bp. Atterbury, Sermons, I. ii. 
3. To weave ; fabricate ; compose. 
Thou shalt have her. VVas't not to this end 
That thou begau'st to ticist so fine a story ? 
Shak., Much Ado, i. 1. 313. 
Consort both harp and lute, and twist a song 
Pleasant and long. 
G. Herbert, The Church, Easter. 
4. To wreathe; wind; twine. 
Green, slender, leaf-clad holly-boughs 
Were twisted gracefu' round her brows. 
Burns, The Vision, i. 
5. To bend or turn spirally, as by causing both 
ends to revolve in opposite directions; alter 
in shape so that parts previously in the same 
straight line and plane are located in a spiral 
curve ; also, to cause to move spirally or with 
a progressive rotary motion, as a ball when 
pitched in a curve, or a billiard-ball when Eng- 
lished. 
By all that is hirsute and gashly ! I cry, taking off my 
fin r'il cap, and twisting it round my finger, I would not 
give sixpence for a dozen such. 
Sterne, Tristram Shandy, V. 215. 
The fountain . . . playing now 
A twisted snake, and now a rain of pearls. 
Tennyson, Princess, Prol. 
Others [columns] have twisted fluting. 
E. A. Freeman, Venice, p. 130. 
The square rods of prepared iron are first twisted to give 
the Damascus figure. W. W. Greener, The Gun, p. 224. 
6. To curve ; bend ; deflect : as, to twist a thing 
into a serpentine form ; twisted like the letter S. 
At length a generation more refln'd . . . 
Gave them [stools] a twisted form vermicular. 
Cowper, Task, i. 30. 
7. To thrust out of place or shape ; contort or 
distort; pervert; wrench; wrest; warp: used 
literally or figuratively. 
There sat ... the dumb old servitor, on deck, 
Winking his eyes, and twisted all his face. 
Tennyson, Lancelot and Elaine. 
I call it a poor-spirited thing to take up a man's straight- 
forward words and twist them. 
George Eliot, Felix Holt, xi. 
8. To press hard; wring. 
She taketh hym by the hand and hard hym twiste, 
So secrely that no wight of it wiste. 
Chaucer, Merchant's Tale, 1. 761. 
9f. To lop, as a tree, by cutting off branches 
or twigs. Cath. Ang.T double and twist. See 
double. To twist round one's (little) finger, to move, 
mold, or influence (a person) at will ; have under complete 
control or subjection. [Colloq.] To twist the lion's 
tall Seetatfi. Twisted bit, Cartesian, cubic. See 
the nouns. Twisted curve. See skew mine, under 
curve. Twisted ironwork, iron bars, straps, etc., 
twisted or plaited together for ornamental purposes : the 
name of a patented invention introduced about 1870. 
Twisted leather. See leather. Twisted net, a ma- 
chine-made net used for linings in dressmaking, etc., gen- 
erally of cotton, and composed of three threads. 
II. intrans. 1. To be intertwined or inter- 
woven. 
Too well he knows the twisting strings 
Of ardent hearts combin'd, 
When rent asunder, how they bleed. 
How hard to be resign'd. 
Young, Resignation. 
2. To be wreathed or coiled ; wind. 
O how these arms, these greedy arms, did twine 
And strongly twist about his yielding waist ! 
Quarles, Emblems, iv. 12. 
3. To be bent round and round spirally; also, 
to move in such a manner or with continuous 
revolutions. 
The ball comes skimming and twisting along about three 
feet from the ground. 
T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, ii. 8. 
The rod is carefully watched whilst twisting, and, should 
one part commence to twist more rapidly than another, a 
man is ready with a pair of tongs to hold that part of the 
rod, so that it is prevented from tu-istiny. 
W. W. Greener, The Gun, p. 224. 
4. To curve ; circle ; revolve ; move in a circle 
or spiral. 
At noon, or when the lesser wain 
Is tinsting round the polar star. 
Tennyson, In Memoriam, ci. 
5. To be bent, turned, or contorted; writhe; 
squirm. 
The eels lie tinsting in the pangs of death. 
Pope, Iliad, xxi. 413. 
Its limbs were gnarled, . . . tieisting down almost to 
the earth. Irmng, Sketch-Book, p. 447. 
Let him cry like a woman and twist like an eel. 
Whittier, Mogg Megone, i. 
Twisted Columns. 
Cloisters of St. John Late- 
ran. Koine. 
twistle 
6f. To be parted or cleft in twain; be divided, 
severed, sundered, or separated. 
The onderstondinge . . . tuysteth ine tuo, huanne me 
wylneth of one half to god, and of otherhalf to the wordle. 
Ayenbite of Inwyt (E. E. T. S.), p. 159. 
twistable (twis'ta-bl), a. [< twist + -able.'] 
Capable of being twisted or turned. 
This amendment is twistable into an advice, an impel ti- 
nent advice to a foreign nation. 
Sew York Tribune, March 28, 1862. 
twisted (twis'ted), a. [< twist + -erf 2 .] 1. In 
entoiti., noting a joint of the legs, etc., when 
the faces tend to turn spirally on the joint, as 
if this had been subjected 
to a twisting force. 2. In 
lot., contorted or bent on 
itself. In estivation, same 
as convolute Twisted col- 
umn, a shaft so shaped as to pre- 
sent the appearance of having 
been twisted. Columns of this 
form are frequent in minor or- 
ders in Romanesque architecture, 
and occur in works of the Renais- 
sance. Twisted eglantine. 
See honeysuckle, 1. Twisted 
pine, a stunted pine, Pinus con- 
torta, of the western coast of 
North America; also, P. Teocote 
of Mexico, also called candle- 
wood pine. Twisted suture, 
in surg., a suture in which the 
edges of a wound are pierced 
transversely by a needle over 
which a thread is wound in fig- 
ui e-of-8 form ; a harelip suture. 
twisted-flower (twis'ted- 
flou"er), n. See Stropluin- 
thus. 
twisted-horn (twis'ted- 
hdrn), n. See Helicteres. 
twisted-stalk (twis'ted- 
stak), 11. See Streptopus. 
twisted-Stick (twis'ted-stik), n. See Helicteres. 
twister (twis'ter), w. [< ME. twysier ; <. twist + 
-er^.~\ 1. One who or that which twists. Spe- 
cificallyfa) In weaving, the person whose occupation 
it is to twist or join the threads of one warp to those 
of another. 
Now, in consequence of the " cross " keeping the threads 
of both the warps in consecutive order, the " twister.in " 
has no difficulty in finding the proper threads to twist 
together. A. Barlow, Weaving, p. 311. 
(b) An implement or device used for twisting yarns, 
threads, cords, etc. (c) In carp., a girder, (d) That which 
is twisted or which moves with a twist, as a ball in cricket 
or billiards. 
The cover-point hitter, that cunning man, goes on to bowl 
slow twisten. T. Hughes, Tom Brown at Rugby, ii. S. 
He has learned the trick of playing with a straight bat 
the examiner's most artful twisters. 
Pop. Set. Mo., XXXIV. 547. 
(e) That which twists, writhes, or contorts. 
He ... ran through the whole electrical pharmaco- 
poeia, . . . utilising an induction coil to produce the most 
powerful but involuntary contort ions of the diseased limb. 
After an extra vigorous twister the doctor would say, " How 
does that feel?" Elect. Ren. (Eng.), XXIV. 525. 
(/t) One who trims trees by lopping. Cath. Ang. (g) A 
bird that flies with twisting or zigzag flight, as the snipe. 
2. In the manege, the inner part of the thigh : 
the proper place to rest upon when on horse- 
back. Labrador twister. See the quotation. 
Those very small wiry, compactly feathered, weather- 
tanned birds [woodcock], who appear in October and who 
are called, perhaps locally, Labrador twisters. 
H. D. ilinot, Land-Birds and Game- Birds of New England 
[(1877), p. 405. 
twisting (twis'ting), n. [Verbal n. of twist^v."] 
Torsion. 
twisting-crook (twis'ting-kruk), n. A throw- 
crook. 
twisting-forceps (twis'ting-f6r"seps), n. In 
sury., same as torsion forceps (which see, under 
torsion). 
twistingly (twis'ting-li), adv. In a twisting 
manner ; by twisting or being twisted. Bailey, 
1731. 
twisting-machine (twis'ting-ma-shen*), n. A 
machine for twisting rope and cordage ; a rope- 
machine. 
twisting-mill (twis'ting-mil), n. In spinning, 
a thread-frame. 
twist-joint (twist'joint), n. A joint formed by 
laying the ends of two wires past each other a 
few inches and binding the end of each several 
times round the other wire : much used in Amer- 
ican telegraph-lines. 
twistle 1 (twis'l), v. t. ; pret. and pp. ticistletl, 
ppr. tu-itstling. [A freq. of twist.] To twist. 
Jnuiieson (spelled twisle, ticiisslt). [Scotch.] 
twistle 1 (twis'l), 11. [< tiristle 1 , r.] A twist ; 
a wrench. [Scotch.] 
The L 's cause ne'er got sic a twistle 
Sin' I ha'e min'. Burns, Twa Herds. 
