twig

From Middle English twig, twyg, from Old English twīg, from Proto-Germanic *twīgą (compare West Frisian twiich, Dutch twijg, German Zweig), from Proto-Indo-European *dwigʰa- (compare Old Church Slavonic двигъ (dvigŭ, “branch”), Albanian degë (“branch”)), from *dwóh₁. More at two.

• (US) IPA^(key): /twɪɡ/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪɡ

twig (plural twigs)

1. A small thin branch of a tree or bush.

   They used twigs and leaves as a base to start the fire.

   • 1907, Harold Bindloss, chapter 1, in The Dust of Conflict‎:

     A beech wood with silver firs in it rolled down the face of the hill, and the maze of leafless twigs and dusky spires cut sharp against the soft blueness of the evening sky.

• tillow

• off one's twig
• twig and berries

twig (third-person singular simple present twigs, present participle twigging, simple past and past participle twigged)

1. (transitive) To beat with twigs.

From Irish and Scottish Gaelic tuig (“to understand”).

twig (third-person singular simple present twigs, present participle twigging, simple past and past participle twigged)

1. (colloquial, regional) To realise something; to catch on.

   • He hasn't twigged that we're planning a surprise party for him.

   • 2012 May 30, John E. McIntyre, “A future for copy editors”, in Baltimore Sun‎:

     Well, with fewer people doing two or three times the work, you may have already twigged to this.

2. To understand the meaning of (a person); to comprehend.

   Do you twig me?

3. To observe slyly; also, to perceive; to discover.
   • Foote

     Now twig him; now mind him.

   • Hawthorne

     as if he were looking right into your eyes and twigged something there which you had half a mind to conceal

Compare tweak.

twig (third-person singular simple present twigs, present participle twigging, simple past and past participle twigged)

1. (obsolete, Scotland) To twitch; to pull; to tweak.

• (Early ME) twi, twiȝ
• twigge, twyg, twygge, tuyg

From Old English twīg, from Proto-Germanic *twīgą.

• IPA^(key): /twiɡ/, /twiː/

twig (plural twigges)

1. Any part of a tree, especially a branch or cutting:
   1. A twig or tillow; a shoot branching off a tree.
   2. A easily bending branch used in crafts.
2. (figuratively, rare) A subtype or part of something; the result or descendant of something.

• English: twig
• Scots: twigg, tuigg

• “twig (n.)” in MED Online, Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan, 2007, retrieved 2018-08-08.