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TWIG
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
Irregular inflected forms: twigged , twigging
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A small branch or division of a branch (especially a terminal division); usually applied to branches of the current or preceding year
Synonyms:
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("twig" is a kind of...):
branch (a division of a stem, or secondary stem arising from the main stem of a plant)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "twig"):
brier (a thorny stem or twig)
wand (a thin supple twig or rod)
withe; withy (strong flexible twig)
Derivation:
twig (branch out in a twiglike manner)
twiggy (thin as a twig)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Branch out in a twiglike manner
Example:
The lightning bolt twigged in several directions
Classified under:
Verbs of size, temperature change, intensifying, etc.
Hypernyms (to "twig" is one way to...):
branch; fork; furcate; ramify; separate (divide into two or more branches so as to form a fork)
Sentence frame:
Something ----s
Derivation:
twig (a small branch or division of a branch (especially a terminal division); usually applied to branches of the current or preceding year)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Understand, usually after some initial difficulty
Example:
She didn't know what her classmates were plotting but finally caught on
Synonyms:
catch on; cotton on; get it; get onto; get wise; latch on; tumble; twig
Classified under:
Verbs of thinking, judging, analyzing, doubting
Hypernyms (to "twig" is one way to...):
apprehend; compass; comprehend; dig; get the picture; grasp; grok; savvy (get the meaning of something)
Sentence frames:
Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s PP
Context examples:
The essential oil extracted from the needles and twigs of the black spruce, Picea mariana.
(Picea mariana Leaf Oil, NCI Thesaurus)
Spruce twigs are an important winter food for snowshoe hares; when the hares can get at them, these herbivores may nibble every branch in sight.
(Race across the tundra: White spruce vs. snowshoe hare, National Science Foundation)
It was not more than thirty feet that I had to go, but I went inch by inch, for the old rotten boards snapped like breaking twigs if a sudden weight was placed upon them.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
Therefore the honeyguide waits while an expert human undertakes the dangerous tasks of subduing the bees (by smoking them out using a flaming bundle of twigs and leaves hoisted high into the tree) and extracting the honey from within, usually by felling the entire tree.
(How humans and wild Honeyguide birds call each other to help, The Titi Tudorancea Bulletin)
When I returned to my seat, that lady was just delivering an order of which I did not catch the import; but Burns immediately left the class, and going into the small inner room where the books were kept, returned in half a minute, carrying in her hand a bundle of twigs tied together at one end.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
Readily, answered the little man; take you the trunk on your shoulders, and I will raise up the branches and twigs; after all, they are the heaviest.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
So he patiently broke twig after twig till he had made a little hole through which he peeped, saying imploringly, 'Let me in! Let me in!'
(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)
This ominous tool she presented to Miss Scatcherd with a respectful curtesy; then she quietly, and without being told, unloosed her pinafore, and the teacher instantly and sharply inflicted on her neck a dozen strokes with the bunch of twigs.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
She brushed her nose with her paws, trying to dislodge the fiery darts, thrust it into the snow, and rubbed it against twigs and branches, and all the time leaping about, ahead, sidewise, up and down, in a frenzy of pain and fright.
(White Fang, by Jack London)
He had not gone far before he met an old miser: close by them stood a tree, and on the topmost twig sat a thrush singing away most joyfully.
(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)
