twitchとは

発音

• IPA^(key): /twɪt͡ʃ/
• 韻: -ɪtʃ

名詞

twitch (複数形 twitches)

1. A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.

   I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying.

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.

   (Can we find かつ add a quotation of J. H. Walsh to this entry?)

4. (physiology, countable) A brief, contractile response of a skeletal muscle elicited by a single maximal volley of impulses in the neurons supplying it.

派生語

• nervous twitch
• twitch game

参照

• Twitch in The Free Dictionary (Medicine)

動詞

twitch (三人称単数 現在形 twitches, 現在分詞 twitching, 過去形および過去分詞形 twitched)

1. (intransitive) To perform a twitch; spasm.
   • (Can we date this quote?) — [1]

     "Why is it that you twitch whenever I say Faith?"

   • 1922, Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

     Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses...

2. (transitive) To jerk sharply and briefly.

   to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention

   • Alexander Pope

     Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.

3. (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 [2], →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 [3], →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. "

使用する際の注意点

When used of birdwatchers by ignorant outsiders, this term frequently carries a negative connotation.

派生語

• atwitch

語源 2

alternate of quitch

名詞

twitch (uncountable)

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