Other forms: twigs
A twig is a tiny thin piece of branch. Snapping twigs, a bundle of twigs, gather twigs for kindling.
It is the smallest woody part of a tree, and twigs are what a fire is started with. Identifying trees in winter by their twigs and buds is a standard skill in botany. In British informal speech, to twig means to suddenly understand something — I twigged about halfway through — which is an unrelated verb of unknown origin and is a genuinely useful word.
1nountwigA tiny thin piece of branch.
“The bird built its nest from twigs and moss.”
2verbsuddenlyTo suddenly understand something.
“He twigged about halfway through the second explanation.”
twig is a small branch.
Old English twicg is related to two, from the idea of a branch forking in two — the same twi- as in twin, twice and twilight. A twig is named for the fork rather than the size.
Proto-Indo-European
*dwóh₁
Middle English
twig
English, today
twig
From Middle English twig. From Middle English twig, twyg, twigge, twygge, from Old English twicg, twicg, from Proto-West Germanic twiggu (“small twig, shoot”), apparently a diminutive of Proto-West Germanic twig (“branch, twig”) (whence also Old English twiġ and twiġa), from Proto-Germanic twīgą, from Proto-Indo-European dwigʰom, from dwóh₁. More at two. 2
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in Nature & Weather, Trees & Flowers