Other forms: twittering
To twitter is to make a series of light chirping sounds. Small birds in a hedge at first light.
It is the sound word for sparrows, swallows and finches rather than for song thrushes, which sing. Applied to people it means to talk quickly and nervously about nothing much, and that use is mildly dismissive. There is also the fixed phrase in a twitter, meaning in a state of nervous excitement. The word gave its name to a social network, which is why searching for the original sense is now surprisingly hard.
Twitter has been birdsong for as long as English has been written down. Old English twiterian goes back to a Germanic verb meaning to chirp, and German zwitschern still says the same thing.
Proto-Germanic
*twitwizōną — to chirp; twitter
Proto-West Germanic
*twitwiʀōn
Old English
*twiterian
Middle English
twitren
English, today
Built from
From Middle English twitren, twiteren, from Old English twiterian, from Proto-West Germanic twitwiʀōn, from Proto-Germanic twitwizōną (“to chirp; twitter”). Cognate with Low German twitteren (“to twitter”), German zwitzern, zwitschern (“to twitter”). Compare also Dutch kwetteren (“to twitter”), Danish kvidre (“to twitter”), Swedish kvittra (“to twitter”), dialectal Swedish tittra (“to twitter”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA
Practised in A Man Called Ove, A Song of Ice and Fire
First appears in chapter 7 of A Man Called Ove.
Practise this word