| Library / English Dictionary |
TWITCHING
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A sudden muscle spasm; especially one caused by a nervous condition
Synonyms:
twitch; twitching; vellication
Classified under:
Nouns denoting stable states of affairs
Hypernyms ("twitching" is a kind of...):
cramp; muscle spasm; spasm (a painful and involuntary muscular contraction)
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "twitching"):
tic (a local and habitual twitching especially in the face)
blepharism (condition in which a person blinks continuously)
fibrillation (muscular twitching involving individual muscle fibers acting without coordination)
fasciculation (muscular twitching of contiguous groups of muscle fibers)
Derivation:
twitch (make an uncontrolled, short, jerky motion)
twitch (move with abrupt, seemingly uncontrolled motions)
II. (verb)
Sense 1
-ing form of the verb twitch
Context examples:
Symptoms include muscle weakness, wasting, twitching, trouble swallowing, and slowly becoming paralyzed.
(Motor neuron disease, NCI Dictionary)
Right in the middle there lay the body of a man sorely contorted and still twitching.
(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale (HAMA) Somatic (muscular); pains and aches, twitching, stiffness, myoclonic jerks, grinding of teeth, unsteady voice, increased muscular tone.
(HAMA - Somatic (Muscular), NCI Thesaurus)
He pushed his face forward as he spoke and his lips and eyelids were continually twitching like a man with St. Vitus’s dance.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
There are also specific eyelid problems, including: • Eyelids that turn in or out • Eyelids that droop • Abnormal blinking or twitching
(Eyelid Disorders, NIH)
Glancing at Du Guesclin, Alleyne saw that he also was watching his wife closely, and from the twitching of his features, and the beads upon his brick-colored brow, it was easy to see that he was deeply agitated by the change which he marked in her.
(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
As she still stood looking fixedly at me, a twitching or throbbing, from which I could not dissociate the idea of pain, came into that cruel mark; and lifted up the corner of her lip as if with scorn, or with a pity that despised its object.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
Through the forest they crept noiselessly, Buck at the hairy man’s heels; and they were alert and vigilant, the pair of them, ears twitching and moving and nostrils quivering, for the man heard and smelled as keenly as Buck.
(The Call of the Wild, by Jack London)
Some of the most common are: • Headaches, usually worse in the morning • Nausea and vomiting • Changes in your ability to talk, hear, or see • Problems with balance or walking • Problems with thinking or memory • Muscle jerking or twitching • Numbness or tingling in arms or legs
(Brain Cancer, NIH: National Cancer Institute)
Merry tumbled head foremost into the excavation; the man with the bandage spun round like a teetotum and fell all his length upon his side, where he lay dead, but still twitching; and the other three turned and ran for it with all their might.
(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)
