Other forms: twisted, twists, twisting
To twist is to turn something around itself, the way you wring out a wet cloth. Both ends going opposite ways.
It covers wire, hair, lids and ankles, and twisting an ankle is the commonest injury in any sport. The noun means a turn in a road or, more usefully, a sudden change in a story, so a plot twist is what every thriller is built towards. Twisting somebody's words means misrepresenting them, and twisting somebody's arm means persuading them against their will.
1verbtwistTo turn something around itself or out of shape.
“Twist the lid the other way.”
2noununexpectedAn unexpected development in a story or situation.
“The last chapter has a twist nobody sees coming.”
Twist is built on the word for two. Old English used it inside compounds, where mæsttwist was a rope and candeltwist a wick, and the idea underneath is two strands turned together, as in twine and between.
Proto-Indo-European
*dwóh₁
Proto-Germanic
*twistaz
Old English
*twist
Middle English
twist
English, today
twist
Built from
From Middle English twist, from Old English twist, in compounds (e.g. mæsttwist (“a rope; stay”), candeltwist (“a wick”)), from Proto-Germanic twistaz, a derivative of twi- (“two-”) (compare also twine, between, betwixt). Related to stq Twist (“discord”), Dutch twist (“twist; strife; discord”), German Low German Twist (“strife; discord”), {{cog|de|
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA