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Twist   /twɪst/   Listen
Twist

verb
(past & past part. twisted; pres. part. twisting)
1.
To move in a twisting or contorted motion, (especially when struggling).  Synonyms: squirm, worm, wrestle, wriggle, writhe.  "The child tried to wriggle free from his aunt's embrace"
2.
Cause (a plastic object) to assume a crooked or angular form.  Synonyms: bend, deform, flex, turn.  "Twist the dough into a braid" , "The strong man could turn an iron bar"
3.
Turn in the opposite direction.
4.
Form into a spiral shape.  Synonyms: distort, twine.
5.
Form into twists.
6.
Extend in curves and turns.  Synonyms: curve, wind.  "The path twisted through the forest"
7.
Do the twist.
8.
Twist or pull violently or suddenly, especially so as to remove (something) from that to which it is attached or from where it originates.  Synonym: wrench.  "Wrench oneself free from somebody's grip" , "A deep sigh was wrenched from his chest"
9.
Practice sophistry; change the meaning of or be vague about in order to mislead or deceive.  Synonyms: convolute, pervert, sophisticate, twist around.
10.
Twist suddenly so as to sprain.  Synonyms: rick, sprain, turn, wrench, wrick.  "The wrestler twisted his shoulder" , "The hikers sprained their ankles when they fell" , "I turned my ankle and couldn't walk for several days"



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"Twist" Quotes from Famous Books



... suddenly and wrenched the silk folds off her shoulder. She looked at the marks of his fingers on the delicate skin with a twist of the lips, then shut her eyes with a little gasp and hid her bruised arm hastily, her mouth quivering. But she did not blame him, she had brought it on herself; she knew his mood, and he did not know his ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull

... bite is ascertained to be mortal; they put them into a cane basket, and throw it over their shoulders: these serpents they carry about the country, and exhibit them to the people. I have seen them play with them, and suffer them to twist round their bodies in all directions, without receiving any injury from them. I have often enquired how they managed to do this, but never could get any direct or satisfactory answer; they assure you, however, that faith in their saint, and the powerful influence of the name of the divinity, ...
— An Account of Timbuctoo and Housa Territories in the Interior of Africa • Abd Salam Shabeeny

... exhibiting a carefully-polished capacity for satirical retort—dreaded and disliked by the present generation. Personally, he was little and wiry and slim—with a bright white head, and sparkling black eyes, and a wry twist of humor curling sharply at the corners of his lips. At his lower extremities, he exhibited the deformity which is popularly known as "a club-foot." But he carried his lameness, as he carried his years, gayly. He was socially celebrated for his ivory cane, with a snuff-box artfully let into ...
— Man and Wife • Wilkie Collins

... Kind of Animal is different from that of every other Kind; and yet there is not the least Turn in the Muscles or Twist in the Fibres of any one, which does not render them more proper for that particular Animal's Way of Life than any other Cast or Texture of them ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele

... approached, hat in hand, looking somewhat sheepish, as if he was afraid of getting scolded for having done something wrong. When, however, the captain praised him for his conduct, he gave a hitch to his trowsers and a twist to his ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston

... always; and I go on telling myself about this thing that is to befall and that. Then it comes to the place of the fighting, and it comes over me that I am only a girl at all events, and cannot hold a sword or give one good blow; and then I have to twist my story round about, so that the fighting is to stop, and yet me have the best of it, just like you and the lieutenant; and I am the boy that makes the fine speeches all through, like Mr. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... me to learn to climb?" asked Phonny. In order to see Beechnut while he asked this question, Phonny had to twist his head round in a very unusual position, and look out under his arm. It was obvious that in doing this he was in imminent danger of falling, so unstable was the equilibrium in which he was poised ...
— Mary Erskine • Jacob Abbott

... balls of plaster of Paris and cream-cheese, and puts them in his pocket. When he heard the giant coming through the woods, he climbed a tree; but the giant scented him, and told him to come down. The cobbler answered that if he did not leave him alone he would twist his neck; and to show him how strong he was, he crushed the balls of plaster of Paris in his hands, telling the giant they were marble. The giant was frightened, and invited the cobbler to remain with him, ...
— Italian Popular Tales • Thomas Frederick Crane

... much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier's kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill- conditioned self peering out of one ...
— The Cricket on the Hearth • Charles Dickens

... at Constantinople, and the sixth century churches and mosaics at Ravenna, the Christian slope establishes itself in Europe.[10] In the same century it took a downward twist at Constantinople; but in one part of Europe or another the new inspiration continued to manifest itself supremely for more than six hundred years. There were ups and downs, of course, movements and reactions; in some places art was almost always good, ...
— Art • Clive Bell

... have to show you," said the young man. He laid two fingers on Mr. Schwab's wrist; looking at him, as he did so, steadily and thoughtfully, like a physician feeling a pulse. Mr. Schwab screamed. When he had seen policemen twist steel nippers on the wrists of prisoners, he had thought, when the prisoners shrieked and writhed, they ...
— The Scarlet Car • Richard Harding Davis

... disgusted to see the narrator twist his mouth into a sweet, shrewd, repressed grin even as he expectorated into the nearest receptacle. The grin was greeted by a shout of ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... and what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? When thy heart began to beat, What dread hand formed thy ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various

... violently with the point of his long climbing stick. Taking a circuitous route, he at last reached a sort of little inn. It appeared a poor kind of a place, but clean. The old fellow entered with a resolute air. The porter, half asleep, offered him a candle which he lit with a twist of paper, kindled at the gas-jet. The old man mounted the stairs to his room and closed the door carefully. Having satisfied himself that the window shutters were fastened, he took off his cloak, lit his ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre

... could see that she both felt and looked anxious. As I afterwards learned, she had been passing a day at Mrs. Drewett's villa, which joined her own, both standing on the rocks quite near to that spot which a mawkish set among us is trying to twist from plain homely, up-and-down, old fashioned Hell Gate, into the exquisite and lackadaisical corruption of Hurl Gate—Heaven save the mark! What puny piece of folly and affectation will they attempt next?—but Lucy ...
— Afloat And Ashore • James Fenimore Cooper

... exciting. Down another lane then came a noisy sound of feet, incautiously pattering on the hard ground to the accompaniment of some raucous talk. It is the very devil in this network of lanes and blind alleys which twist round the Legations, and no ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale

... close he could not see her face now. She was to all appearances attempting to twist ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell

... school-houses, barns, market gardens; into dense woods, out on to level plains bare of a tree—one mad, devilish, brutal rush, with every man's eyes glued to the turn of the road ahead, which every half minute swerved, straightened, swerved again; now blocked by trees, now opening out, only to close, twist, and squirm anew. Great fun this, gambling with death, knowing that from behind any bush, beyond every hill crest, and around each curve there may spring something that will make assorted junk of your machine and send you ...
— The Man In The High-Water Boots - 1909 • F. Hopkinson Smith

... runnin' like that Gilchrist can blurt oot the news and keep runnin', it's maistly truth, but if he stops and begins to walk, and twist his mouth before he speaks, he's makin' lies," said McKinnon, and turned himself ...
— The McBrides - A Romance of Arran • John Sillars

... lawyers can, with ease, Twist your words and meanings as you please; That language, by your skill made pliant, Will bend to favor every client; That 'tis the fee directs the sense, To ...
— Life and Literature - Over two thousand extracts from ancient and modern writers, - and classified in alphabetical order • J. Purver Richardson

... came about. For the rod began to twist in my hand and when I stared at it, lo! it was a long, yellow snake which I held by the tail. I threw the reptile down with a scream, for it was turning its head as though to strike me, and there in the dust it twisted and writhed away from me and towards Ki. Yet an instant later it was ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard

... that Thing made of wind smashed the Truxton—a smash of air. It was like a thick sodden cushion, large as a battle-ship—hurled out of the North. The men had to breathe it—that seething havoc which tried to twist their souls free. When passages to the lungs were opened, the dreadful compression of the air crushed through, tearing the ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort

... combination. He may have carried bracelets of steel in his rear pockets; but his associate earnestly assured me that such was far from being the case. "I don't mind telling you the truth, Mr. Hawthorne," he confided to me with a companionable twist of the near corner of his mouth, "I'd as soon think of cuffs, for gentlemen like you two, as nothin' in the world! Why, it's like this—as far as I'm concerned, I'd just put a postage-stamp on you and ship you off by yourselves—I'd know you'd turn up all right of yourselves at the other ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne

... never git this wafer soft! and then I'll turn you up, and give you sich a switching as ye never had in your born days! for I won't be trampled on by you any longer! you little black willyan, you! 'Scat! you hussy! get out o' my way, before I twist ...
— The Missing Bride • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth

... later, bathed, shaved, and sartorially freshened, he selected a blue corn-flower from the rural bouquet on his dresser, drew it through his buttonhole, gave a last alluring twist to his tie, surveyed himself in the mirror, whistled a few bars, was perfectly satisfied with himself, then, unlocking the door, strolled out into the corridor. Having no memory for direction, he took the ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers

... upon the side of a mountain his keen vision surveys the plain or valley, and detects a sheep, a young goat, a fat turkey or rooster, a pig, a rabbit or a large bird, and almost within an eye-twinkle he descends upon his victim. A mighty grasp, a twist of his talons, and the quarry is dead long before the Eagle lays it down for a repast. The impetuosity and skill with which he pursues, overtakes and robs the Fish-hawk, and the swiftness with which the Bald Eagle darts down upon ...
— Birds, Illustrated by Color Photography [July 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various

... be safer," she said quietly. "A darky like Jim, who gets a twist in his head about freedom and license, is a ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock

... entirely denies the Steuer-Notes; says, It was an affair of Peltries and Jewelries, originating in loans of money to this ungrateful Jew. Which necessitates much wriggling on the part of M. de Voltaire;—but he has himself written in a Lawyer's Office, in his young days, and knows how to twist a turn of expression. The Judges are not there to judge about Steuer-Notes; but they give you to understand that Voltaire's Peltry-and-Jewelry story is moonshine. Hirsch produces the Voltaire Scraps of Writing, already known to our readers; Voltaire says, "Mere extinct jottings; which Hirsch ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVI. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Ten Years of Peace.—1746-1756. • Thomas Carlyle

... an' it 'll be too late. Can you stand for me seein' you?... Let me tell you, Mercedes, when the summer heat hits the lava we'll all wither an' curl up like shavin's near a fire. A wind of hell will blow up this slope. Look at them mesquites. See the twist in them. That's the torture of heat an' thirst. Do you want me or all us men seein' you like that?... Mercedes, don't make it all for nothin'. Say you'll persuade Thorne, ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey

... we won't care," said Randolph. "Success speaks for itself. You can squirm and twist all you please, and make all the excuses for it that you can think up, but there stands success glaring contemptuously at you. You're like a little boy ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler

... fills me with hate—we have regard of him, he does not go unobserved, and if you allure him also among the rest, beyond the instructions which you had, then there will be unpleasantness for you, my little cat—thy Hans will twist his bear's neck, and thine ...
— The Price of Things • Elinor Glyn

... say nothing. He stood, the impersonation of silent obstinacy, digging the end of his stick into the earth, or striking at the blue bells and the brambles within reach, resolved to utter no word which Brian could twist into any sort of promise for the future. He knew that his silence might injure his prospects, by lowering him in Brian's estimation—Brian being now the arbiter of his fate—but for all that he could ...
— Under False Pretences - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... him now: The transports that I felt, To hear thee speak, and see thy opening eyes, Stopped, for a moment, his impetuous course, And all my mind was happiness and thee:— But now," etc., "My powers are blasted; 'Twist death and love I'm torn, I am ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 59, September, 1862 • Various

... compatible with the favourable display of his eyes. Regarding the pause which now ensued, as a particularly advantageous opportunity for doing great execution with them upon the locksmith's daughter (who he had no doubt was looking at him in mute admiration), he began to screw and twist his face, and especially those features, into such extraordinary, hideous, and unparalleled contortions, that Gabriel, who happened to look towards him, was stricken ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens

... Jack Benson's throat, as Millard, in grim silence, jerked the rope noose tight about the boy's neck. A sharp pull, a twist, and Millard had the boy face down in that hallway, and was kneeling on the ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham

... simply appalling the way some women dress their hair. A few tugs and yanks with a comb of uneven, unsmooth teeth, a scattering brushing back of scolding locks, some singes here and there with a red-hot curling iron, a twist, a roll, a pat and the application of a dozen hairpins, and the hairdressing ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... begin to grow thick. Already it had released itself from the restraint of cultivation; soon it would be spreading out over the continent, overrunning the cities with delicately persistent green tendrils. Some the harsh winters would kill, but others would live on and would multiply. Vines would twist themselves about the tall buildings and tenderly, passionately squeeze them to death ... eventually send them tumbling down. And then the trees would rear themselves in ...
— The Most Sentimental Man • Evelyn E. Smith

... a fresh literary creation. Such invention is sometimes perverse, sometimes humorous, sometimes sublime; that is, it may either buffet old associations without enlarging them, or give them a plausible but impossible twist, or enlarge them to cover, with unexpected propriety, a much wider or more momentous experience. The force of experience in any moment—if we abstract from represented values—is emotional; so that for sublime poetry what is required is to tap some reservoir ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... drifted others that turned into the drollest of droll pipers—with kilt and brata and cap. It made him feel as if he had been dropped into the center of a giant kaleidoscope, with thousands of pieces of gray smoke turning, at the twist of a hand, into form and color, motion and music. The pipers piped; the figures danced, whirling and whirling about him, and their laughter could be heard ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer

... night they ask. And that is not an easy task; I have to be so many things, The frog that croaks, the lark that sings, The cunning fox, the frightened hen; But just last night they stumped me, when They wanted me to twist and squirm And ...
— A Heap o' Livin' • Edgar A. Guest

... listened to recitations but appealed to the artistic in the newly developing woman. She rolled her hair from neck to brow in a "French twist" and set on the top of it an "Alsatian bow," which stood like gigantic butterfly wings across her proud head. The long basque of her school dress was made after the newest pattern and had smoke-pearl buttons, in overlapping groups of three, set on each side ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger

... pet laughed out merrily, and turning her sweet face up to us, with the funniest little twist of ...
— Little Mittens for The Little Darlings - Being the Second Book of the Series • Frances Elizabeth Barrow

... contrapuntal formulas and prosaic melodic contours, to be used so magnificently by Handel, were never allowed to harden and fossilise in Purcell's music. Even where a phrase threatens us with the dry and commonplace, he gives it a miraculous twist, or adds a touch of harmony that transforms it from a dead into a living thing, from something prosaic into something poetic, rare and enchanting. Let me instance at once how he could do this in the smallest things. This is ordinary enough; it might be ...
— Purcell • John F. Runciman

... time-killer was cards. Of course various games were played, but "poker" was king. A game of the latter could be found in almost every company street, officers as well as men took a "twist at the tiger." At the battle of Chancellorsville I saw a game in full blast right under fire of the rebel shells. Every screeching shell was greeted with an imprecation, while the game ...
— War from the Inside • Frederick L. (Frederick Lyman) Hitchcock

... to twist his head around until he obtained a glimpse of what was going on. "Don't try it, Charley," he implored, "or there will be two of ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely

... once from its neighbors. The Haida carves slate as no other tribe does. The elegant blankets of mountain sheep wool from Chilcat are characteristic. The Hebrews tested the enemy with the word shibboleth, and found that he could only say sibboleth. A twist of the tongue in pronouncing a word is a small matter, but, small as it is, it ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 794, March 21, 1891 • Various

... fellow in the world, and can keep the whole company in convulsions with his quips and cranks. He can imitate the absurdities of costume of every nation, and can present you with an Englishman, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, and a Jew by a mere twist of his hat. The very simplicity of his absurdity makes him the most harmless of men. You cannot imagine him giving offence to any one. He would be incapable of deceiving a girl of sixteen. His whole ambition ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai

... slipped the billet, saying, "Helen, go make yourself most fair to see: Quick! hurry now! no time for more delaying! In just five hours a caller will be here, And you must look your prettiest, my dear! Begin your toilet right away. I know How long it takes you to arrange each bow— To twist each curl, and loop your skirts aright. And you must prove you are au fait to-night, And make a perfect toilet: for our caller Is man, and critic, poet, artist, scholar, And views with eyes of all." "Oh, oh! Maurine," Cried Helen with ...
— Maurine and Other Poems • Ella Wheeler Wilcox

... frame of mind. The track wound along a hillside, between a high bank and a forest of birch trees. I think the distance can't have been more than a quarter of a mile. Anyway, in a very few minutes the road made a sharp twist to the right and we found ourselves looking down into the quarry, over a sheer rocky drop of a hundred feet at least. Below, drawn over to one side of the wall of rock, stood Parnassus. Peg was between the shafts. Bock was nowhere to ...
— Parnassus on Wheels • Christopher Morley

... parading calmly about the gymnasium with "Beverly of Graustark," or to watch "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch" waltz merrily off with "Rip Van Winkle." Every one immediately recognized "The Bow of Orange Ribbon" and "Robinson Crusoe." Meek little Oliver Twist, with his big porridge bowl decorated by a wide white band bearing the legend, "I want some more," was also easy to guess. So were "Evangeline," "Carmen," "The Little Lame Prince," "Ivanhoe," "Janice Meredith," and scores of ...
— Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower

... his own desperation and distress on learning that Inza Burrage had fallen into the power of Del Norte caused him to twist and turn on the bed. Only for O'Toole, he might have been baffled in following Inza's captors. Through the acquaintance and friendship of O'Toole with Red Ben, Del Norte's Indian guide, had come the rescue ...
— Frank Merriwell's Pursuit - How to Win • Burt L. Standish

... made up his mind that little Sarah Tatum was his wife. He used to walk a mile and a half every day, on purpose to escort her to school. When they rambled through the woods, in search of berries, it was his delight to sit beside her on some old stump, and twist her glossy brown ringlets over his fingers. A lovely picture they must have made in the green, leafy frame-work of the woods—that fair, blue-eyed girl, and the handsome, vigorous boy! When he was fourteen years old, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... where the island is on which all the birds are born that become baby boys and girls. No one who is human, except Peter Pan (and he is only half human), can land on the island, but you may write what you want (boy or girl, dark or fair) on a piece of paper, and then twist it into the shape of a boat and slip it into the water, and it reaches ...
— The Little White Bird - or Adventures In Kensington Gardens • J. M. Barrie

... fictional possibilities of being as like as two peas to Royalty were fairly exhausted. But apparently Mr. EDGAR JEPSON does not share this view; and it is only fair to admit that in The Professional Prince (HUTCHINSON) he has contrived to give a novel twist to the already well laboured theme. Prince Richard (precise nationality unstated) was so bored with the common round of his exalted duties that, hearing of a convenient double, he engages him, at four ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various

... box, used to watch him, fascinated, while he laboriously completed a water set, or a tea set. A preliminary dive would bring up the first of a half dozen related pieces, each swathed in tissue paper. A deft twist on the part of the attendant Aloysius would strip the paper wrappings and disclose a ruby-tinted tumbler, perhaps. Another dive, and another, until six gleaming glasses stood revealed, like chicks without a hen mother. A final dip, much scratching and burrowing, during ...
— Fanny Herself • Edna Ferber

... threatened now, she realized with a little sick twist of apprehension at heart, when her casual inquiry to a maid upon entering was answered by a discreet, "Yes, Mrs. Breckenridge, Mr. Breckenridge came home half an hour ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris

... to turn and twist Spinoza, too; and always he had refused to come within your meaning. His Substance, his God stood still, in eternity. He, too; before the noisy, rich, exciting Hegel, he drew back into its stillness; pure and cold, a ...
— Mary Olivier: A Life • May Sinclair

... blown from its pedestal by some gigantic disturbance. He appeared to buckle in his mid-air leap like a bended thing of metal, then dropped to the earth, stiff-legged as an iron image, to bound up again with mad and furious gyrations that seemed to the girl to twist both horse and rider into one live ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels

... that morning we were served for the first time with the native dish of "Poi," a pink-colored mush that, to be appreciated, must be eaten in the native manner, the people to the manner born plunging a forefinger into the dish, giving it a peculiar twist that causes it to cling, and then depositing it between the lips, where the "Poi" remains and the finger is again ready to seek the dish. In eating in such a fashion Frank Flint would have had away the best of it, and, as it was, I noticed both then and afterward that men like ...
— A Ball Player's Career - Being the Personal Experiences and Reminiscensces of Adrian C. Anson • Adrian C. Anson

... shaking the ground beneath it, it seemed impossible to Jim that man really made it. What! Bend those mighty rods of steel to his will? Twist and shape those others? Cast those great drivers? And after, to drive the ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips

... velvet fur-trimmed cloak and plumed bonnet, beamed upon them with an expansive benevolence and kindliness. She was a large, handsome, florid woman. Her grayish-brown hair was carefully crimped, and looped back from her fat, pink cheeks, a fine shell-and-gold comb surmounted her smooth French twist, and held her bonnet in place. She unfastened her cloak, and a diamond brooch at her throat caught the light and blazed red like a ruby. She was the wife of Norman Lloyd, the largest shoe-manufacturer in the place. There was between her and Cynthia a sort of relationship by ...
— The Portion of Labor • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman

... Nick threw Madge at them, he leaped forward and seized the switch, which was almost at Grinnel's shoulder, where he had been standing; and, with a twist of his wrist, he turned off the lights as suddenly as they had been ...
— A Woman at Bay - A Fiend in Skirts • Nicholas Carter

... draw him from this union by logical, sensible arguments. Though logically he can find nothing to say against such arguments, though the system in which he lives conflicts wholly with his original disposition, he must continue in it, because otherwise he would run wild, and he will sooner twist and falsify his ideas and feelings completely than be disobedient to the voice of the herd in which be finds ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden

... tried my German on them, but they were, evidently, too Swiss to understand me—I was at the time making a whistle from a small willow which I had cut from the wayside. I seated myself on the bank and went on making my whistle. The children watched me pound the bark, then twist off the loosened peeling, and finish the whistle. When I blew it, they laughed. I handed it to the boy, who timidly put it to his lips. They sat down by me, and I made a whistle for the girl, then a third, bigger one, which I stuck into the boy's pocket, ...
— Story of Chester Lawrence • Nephi Anderson

... I adore Annabella, but I don't love her; and I love thee, Milicent, but I don't adore thee.' In proof of his affection, he clutched a handful of her light brown ringlets, and appeared to twist ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte

... century ago, Jefferson wrote to Spencer Roane, "The Constitution, on this hypothesis, is a mere thing of wax in the hands of the judiciary, which they may twist and shape into any form they please."[39] And however much we may recoil from admitting Jefferson's conclusion to be true, it none the less remains the fact that it has proved itself to be true, and that the people have recognized it to be true, and have taken measures to protect themselves ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams

... parish," said Brown, studying the fire with an odd twist at the corners of his lips, "I lay awake nights worrying over my problems. Here, I'm asleep the minute my head touches the pillow. Isn't ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond

... heir, A dashing blade, Whose sire in trade Enough had made, By cribbage, short skirts, and little capes, Long bills, and items for buckram, tapes, Buttons, twist, and small ware; Which swell a bill out so delightfully, Or perhaps ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle

... be apt to say, "That will never do, sir. You can't pass yourself off for a great scholar with this clap-trap. You are nothing but a pistareen, and rather smooth at that. You are, indeed. Those big words that we have to bend up and twist around to get into our coat-pockets, will not go for sense. So pray be quiet, and not attempt to pass for any more than you are honestly worth, which is little enough, to ...
— Wreaths of Friendship - A Gift for the Young • T. S. Arthur and F. C. Woodworth

... road we sat down for a moment, and her hair, which had been coming loose for some time, fell over her shoulders in little waves that were most alluring. It seemed a pity to twist it up again, but when I suggested this, cautiously, she said it was troublesome and got in her eyes when it was loose. So she gathered it up, while I held a row of little shell combs and pins, and when it was done it was vastly becoming, too. Funny about hair: a man never knows he has it until he ...
— The Man in Lower Ten • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... she twist and twine, And make the fine marche pine, {93c} And with the needle work; And she couth help the priest to say His matins on a holiday, And ...
— Playful Poems • Henry Morley

... "growling" was a month's a year previous. Let the general say the word and fifty thousand more shells will be fired on Thursday than on Wednesday. He throws off and on the switch of a Niagara of death. The infantry is the Oliver Twist of incessant demand. It would like a score of batteries turned on one machine gun, all the batteries in the army against a battalion front, and a sheet of shells in the air night and day, as you yourself would wish if you were ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer

... supported by arms so twisted as also to form part of a screw. The propeller subsequently applied to the steamship 'Princeton' was identical with my said design of 1835. Even the mode adopted to determine, by geometrical construction, the twist of the blades and arms of the 'Princeton's' and other propellers was identical with my design ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord

... roared he. "My yeres do be in woeful estate. Oho, what o' yon fierce-fingered rogue, good fellows, what o' yon knave—'a did twist my yeres plaguily and wring 'em roguishly, 'a did! Shall 'a not be beaten and drubbed out into the kennel, ha? What o' poor Nykins' yeres, says ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol

... seem to sprawl less than those of England, and the countryside in general is more compact and regular. The roads are straight and tree-bordered, so that they form almost as good a guide to an airman as the railways. In England the roads twist and twirl through each other like the threads of a spider's web, and failing rail or river or prominent landmarks, one usually steers by compass rather than ...
— Cavalry of the Clouds • Alan Bott

... remembered that and forgot everything else. Billy may not have known anything about it—or have been able to stop her if he did. Sheila is just as clever as she is pretty and generally gets her own way in everything; since her mother died three years ago she has been able to twist her father around her little finger. ...
— The Monk of Hambleton • Armstrong Livingston

... right, and there was every prospect of an interesting time. Very soon we were ordered forward to skirmish. As the order was received, Smith remarked, with a peculiar twang to his heavy voice and an odd twist of his head: ...
— In The Ranks - From the Wilderness to Appomattox Court House • R. E. McBride

... put my faith in the practical effect of a powerful band of employers, perhaps a majority, who, whether from high motives or self-interest, or from a combination of the two—they are not necessarily incompatible ideas—will form a vigilant and instructed police, knowing every turn and twist of the trade, and who will labor constantly to protect themselves from being undercut by the illegal competition ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling

... first word, sing, is an indivisible phonetic entity conveying the notion of a certain specific activity. The other words all involve the same fundamental notion but, owing to the addition of other phonetic elements, this notion is given a particular twist that modifies or more closely defines it. They represent, in a sense, compounded concepts that have flowered from the fundamental one. We may, therefore, analyze the words sings, singing, and singer as binary expressions involving a fundamental concept, a concept ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... wheel a twist, cut a fine curve around the windmill and stopped before the house with as near a flourish as a seven-passenger automobile loaded from tail-lamp to ...
— The Heritage of the Sioux • B.M. Bower

... to Burke's room. She opened the strong-box stealthily, listening intently for every sound. She slipped the packet of notes inside, and shut it again quickly with a queer little twist of the heart as she caught sight of the envelope containing the cigarette which once he had drawn from between her lips. Then with a start she heard the sound of hoofs outside the window, and she knew ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell

... that there are dozens of different sugars, so much alike that they are difficult to separate. They are all composed of the same three elements, C, H and O, and often in the same proportion. Sometimes two sugars differ only in that one has a right-handed and the other a left-handed twist to its molecule. They bear the same resemblance to one another as the two gloves of a pair. Cane sugar and beet sugar are when completely purified the same substance, that is, sucrose, C{12}H{22}O{11}. The brown and straw-colored sugars, which our forefathers used and which ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson

... way that would make any woman mad. I might twist myself into as many knots as you have. I might say that I had caused this disaster; that March evening my hand was too true. For I knew then the man ought ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... the words when there came a cry from the acrobatic youth. His wheel commenced to wobble and twist. Over into some bushes he shot, to fall with a crash ...
— The Mystery at Putnam Hall - The School Chums' Strange Discovery • Arthur M. Winfield

... the microscopic, full of surprising novelties of colour and form. So like the kaleidoscope in the ever changing, ever shifting bits of colour reflecting each other, falling into new patterns with each twist of the toy. If you care for the iridescence of the moment you will trust vaudeville as you are not able to trust any other sort of a performance. You have no chance for the fatigue of problem. You are at rest as far as thinking is concerned. ...
— Adventures in the Arts - Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets • Marsden Hartley

... anything to eat between breakfast and dinner let him have a piece of dry bread; and if he have eaten very heartily at dinner, and, like Oliver Twist, "asks for more!" give him, to satisfy his craving, a piece of dry bread. He will never eat more of that than will do him good, and yet he will take sufficient to satisfy his hunger, ...
— Advice to a Mother on the Management of her Children • Pye Henry Chavasse

... has gone to sleep," remarked Ramiro, reflectively. "Here you, Simon, twist his arm a little. No, not the right arm; he may want that to sign with, which will be awkward if it is ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... runes written on them toward him and made a hasty assembly of them. At once, there was a feeling of growing, and the sylph began to shrink away from them. Now they were falling swiftly, growing as they dropped. Dave felt his stomach twist, until he saw they were heading toward a huge bird that was cruising along under them, drawing closer. It looked like a cross between a condor and a hawk, but its wing span must have been over three hundred ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey

... of Oxford, once said that a false anecdote may be good history; it may be sound evidence for character, for, to obtain currency, a false anecdote has also to true; it must be, in our proverbial phrase, "if not true, well invented." Even if exaggeration and humour contribute to give it a twist, the essence of parody is that it parodies—it must conform to the original even where it leaves it. A good story-teller will hardly tell the same story of Mr. Roosevelt and the Archbishop of Canterbury—unless it happens to be true, ...
— The Jesus of History • T. R. Glover

... groanings of the old hut. Foolishly I accompanied my companions, when they started for Cape Evans, as far as the bottom of Ski Slope. When I left them I found I could not keep my feet on the slippery snow and ice patches, and I had several nasty falls, in one of which I gave my shoulder a twist. It was this shaking combined with the rather desperate conditions which caused a more acute state of illness and sickness than I had experienced for some time. Some of those days I remained alone at Hut Point I was too weak to do more than ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard

... time or other know him, and single him out, by crying or pointing, or some such Thing, especially if he was suspected and shew'd to it, and therefore it would be better for him to kill the Child, prompting him to kill it for his own Safety, and that he need do no more but twist the Neck of it a little, or crush it with his Knee; He told me he stood debating with himself, whether he should do so or not; but that in that Instant his Heart struck him with the Word Murther, and he entertain'd a Horror of it, refus'd to ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe

... of lambs and the sinuous power of less affectionate creatures. But the people about them were wildly excited. They stopped to watch every wary movement of the foot, and craned their necks to catch the subtlest twist of ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... uneasy at being stared at by so many eyes, and she began to writhe and twist as though anxious to escape. There was a sudden scramble on the part of the soldiers and officers in the barrack building, but the three chums, having faith in their old friend, the little scientist, ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young

... word, which undoubtedly derives from cuculus, cogul, cocu, a cuckoo, has taken a queer twist, nor can I explain how its present meaning arose from a shebird which lays her egg in a strange nest. Wittol, on the other hand, from Witan, to know, is rightly applied to one whom La Fontaine calls "cocu et ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... that there, Jette. But things ain' that easy to straighten out. I knows all right I was born with a kind o' a twist in my back, even if nobody don't see it. No, I wasn't born in no castle. Well, I gotta do what I c'n do with my twist. All right. What d'you want? 'Tain't for the rats you're keepin' me. You wanta hush up somethin' wi' ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume II • Gerhart Hauptmann

... you turn your head?" cried the mother, seizing the said member between her two hands and giving it an energetic twist that dislocated a bone or snapped a tendon, one might have surmised from the sharp crick-crack which accompanied the movement. "What in the name of decency makes you pack your mouth in ...
— Lippincott's Magazine. Vol. XII, No. 33. December, 1873. • Various

... means; there is nothing supernatural in a whirlwind, and the effect of a whirlwind is to twist everything round. Why should the heroine and the Honourable Augustus Bouverie not be submitted to the laws of nature? besides, we are writing a fashionable novel. Wild and improbable as this whirlwind may appear, it is within the range of probability: whereas, that is not at all adhered ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... occurred to him more than once that her course was changing toward Stanton. There was no less return on her part of his light bantering style of conversation. Indeed, she seemed to take great pains to give a humorous twist to everything he said, as if she regarded even the words in which he tried to unfold his deeper thoughts as mere jests. But Van Berg imagined she began to make herself more inaccessible to Stanton. She entrenched herself ...
— A Face Illumined • E. P. Roe

... with sudden astonishment and terror. She had caught sight of me, emerging from the black shadow just behind her victim. Kirby also perceived the quick change in the face fronting him, read its expression of fright, and sought to twist his head so as to learn the truth. Yet before he could accomplish this, or his lips could give utterance to a sound, my hands closed on his throat, crushing him down to the sill, and throttling him into silence between ...
— The Devil's Own - A Romance of the Black Hawk War • Randall Parrish

... with exaggerated politeness to George and the alcalde, and with a fierce twist of his moustache strode ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood

... accuracy is of far greater importance than eccentric curves. Almost all professional pitchers now use the overhand delivery and pitch only a fast, straight ball and a curve. The fast ball, on account of its being thrown overhand and the twist thereby given, "jumps" in the air, that is, it rises slightly, while the curve, pitched with the same motion, goes outward and downward. The curve will necessarily be slower than the straight ball, and this will give all the variation in speed needed to unsettle ...
— Base-Ball - How to Become a Player • John M. Ward

... look like Australian gums; they tapered to the tops, the branches were pretty regular, and the boughs hung in shipshape fashion. There was not the Australian heat to twist the branches ...
— While the Billy Boils • Henry Lawson

... reply, "and I feel for you with all my heart. And I'm disappointed myself about Miss Clara, and so's scores more in the parish. The Sunday-school ain't the same as it was—no, nor the parish neither, now that she don't come among us as she used to do. But there's a twist somewheres in people's views about the education of young ladies in our day. 'Tain't so much in my way, sir, it's true, as it is in yours, to notice these things; but sometimes them as is standing a little way ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson

... so afraid of Mitya to-day?" inquired Rakitin. "I should have thought you were not timid with him, you'd twist him ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky

... arrive and quit the island secretly," he finished his evidence in chief, and the beetle-browed, portly barrister sat down. I was not so stupid but what I could see a little, even then, how the most innocent events of my past were going to rise up and crush me; but I was certain I could twist him into admitting the goodness of my tale which hadn't yet been told. He knew I had been in Jamaica, and, put what construction he liked on it, he would have to admit ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer

... corners that seem to have no possible mission on earth and are sadly conscious of their aimlessness. Then the railing is reached, and the alley instead of ending has merely given itself an angular twist to the right, and extends three squares further, to a great, pale green ...
— Violets and Other Tales • Alice Ruth Moore

... even at fifty you have a sweetheart!" I blurted out with a sudden twist of my probe. I felt now that I might as well follow ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith

... the fire with a calf in his wake. Another cowpuncher dropped the loop of his lariat on the ground, gave it a little upward twist as the calf passed over it, jerked taut the riata, and caught the animal by the hind leg. In a moment the victim lay stretched on the ground. In the gathering gloom the girl could not quite make out what the men were doing. To her sensitive nostrils drifted an acrid odor of burnt hair ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine

... for a repetition of the words; this time there was no mistake about it, "Steam-pudding or pumpkin-pie?" echoed the maiden, giving me the terrible alternative in her most cutting tones; "Both!" I ejaculated, with equal distinctness, but, I believe, audacity unparalleled since the times of Twist. The female Bumble seemed to reel beneath the shock, and I noticed that after communicating her experience to her fellow waiting-woman, I was not thought of much account for the remainder of ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler

... gingerbread to eat; An' Tom meaede leaest, wi' all his sheaekes, An' paid the money vor the ceaekes, But wer so lwoth to put it down As if a penny wer a poun'. Then up come zidelen Sammy Heaere, That's fond o' Poll, an' she can't bear, A-holden out his girt scram vist, An' ax'd her, wi' a grin an' twist, To have zome nuts; an' she, to hide Her laughen, turn'd her head azide, An' answer'd that she'd rather not, But Nancy mid. An' Nan, so hot As vier, zaid 'twer quite enough Vor Poll to answer vor herzuf: She had a tongue, she zaid, an' wit Enough to use en, when 'twer ...
— Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect • William Barnes

... about it the better. We'll have to harden our hearts," said Henri, looking very determined and attempting to twist the ends of his miniature moustache; "we'll have to save our food ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton

... did George, from the rear, see the drivers, with a simultaneous gesture, twist their heads very sharply to the right, raise their whips, and fling the thongs over the withers of the hand-horses, while ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett

... moon commence with Galileo's discovery that her surface has mountains and valleys, like the earth. He also found that, while she always turns the same face to us, there is periodically a slight twist to let us see a little round the eastern or western edge. This was called libration, and the explanation was clear when it was understood that in showing always the same face to us she makes one revolution a month ...
— History of Astronomy • George Forbes

... show us the lightning whirls and twirls of your nimble limbs. Glorious offspring of Phrynichus,[172] let fly your kicks, so that the spectators may be overjoyed at seeing your legs so high in air. Twist, twirl, tap your bellies, kick your legs to the sky. Here comes your famous father, the ruler of the sea,[173] delighted to see his three lecherous kinglets.[174] Go on with your dancing, if it pleases you, but as for us, we shall not ...
— The Eleven Comedies - Vol. I • Aristophanes et al

... Graham's handwriting," said Carrie; glancing at the superscription. "Perhaps he knows something of 'Lena!" and she looked meaningly at her mother, who, with a peculiar twist of her mouth, replied, ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes

... for the while, at the edge of a sector from whence all military importance had recently been removed by a convulsive twist of a hundred-mile battle-front. In this dull hole-in-a-corner the new-arrived rivets were in process of welding into the more veteran structure of the ...
— Bruce • Albert Payson Terhune

... your paste-board, take out small portions of the dough, and make it with your hand into long rolls. Then curl up the rolls into round cakes, or twist two rolls together, or lay them in straight lengths or sticks side by side, and touching each other. Put them carefully in buttered pans, and bake them in a moderate oven, not hot enough to burn them. If they should get scorched, scrape off with a knife, or grater, all the ...
— Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry Cakes, and Sweetmeats • Miss Leslie

... gave a little twist to her mouth, which seemed to indicate that if she spoke she should express her contempt of such an opinion, ...
— The Late Mrs. Null • Frank Richard Stockton

... "See her twist her hair," he snarled venomously as the young woman, still boldly eying Nathaniel, played with the luxuriant curls that glistened in the sun upon her breast. "Ezra Wilton is so fond of her that he will take no other wife. Ugh, Strang ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... known a country rake talked of for a riot, whole years after the battle of Blenheim has grown obsolete. Fame, like an essence, the farther it is diffused, the sooner it vanishes. The million in London devour an event and demand another to-morrow. Three or four families in a hamlet twist and turn it, examine, discuss, mistake, repeat their mistake, remember their mistake, and teach ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole



Words linked to "Twist" :   curl, shape, maneuver, change shape, trauma, twist wood, rotation, interweave, pigtail, interpretation, twister, stream, spiral, movement, construction, move, curved shape, snarl, lace, injure, crank, birling, rotary motion, mat, intertwine, pirouette, trip the light fantastic, enlace, hairdo, harm, quirk, dance, plication, be, development, logrolling, coif, manoeuvre, tangle, untwist, fold, gnarl, form, flexure, fast one, refer, indent, dent, tactical maneuver, motion, bend, coiffure, crimp, entangle, denote, change form, mnemonic, interlace, trick, hairstyle, wring, contort, whirl, hurt, deform, crick, twiddle, hair style, current, wound, injury, crease, tress, weave, social dancing, circumvolute, bight, curve, tactical manoeuvre, gimmick, convolve, snake, trip the light fantastic toe, entwine, wave, crook, queue, incurvate, unbend



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