Definition of "twitch"

twitch¹

/twɪt͡ʃ/

noun
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.
  Quotations
  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.
  1861, John Henry Walsh, The Horse in the Stable and in the Field
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.
verb
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.
  Quotations
  Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses...
  1921 June, Margery Williams, “The Velveteen Rabbit: Or How Toys Become Real”, in Harper’s Bazar, volume LVI, number 6 (2504 overall), New York, N.Y.: International Magazine Company
3. (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.
  Quotations
  Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.
  1714, Alexander Pope, “The Rape of the Lock”, in The Works of Mr. Alexander Pope, volume I, London: […] W[illiam] Bowyer, for Bernard Lintot, […], published 1717, canto III
4. (obsolete) To exert oneself.
5. (transitive) To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
  Quotations
  "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."
  1995, Quarterly Review of Biology, volume 70, page 348
  "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."
  2003, Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe‎, page 52
  "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. "
  2005, Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time‎, page 119

twitch²

/twɪt͡ʃ/

noun
uncountable
1. couch grass (Elymus repens; a species of grass, often considered as a weed)

Definition of "twitch"

twitch1

noun

Quotations

verb

Quotations

Quotations

Quotations

twitch2

noun

twitch¹

twitch²