twinge

From Old English twengan, from Proto-Germanic *þwinganą. Compare German zwingen (“to force”)

• IPA^(key): /twɪndʒ/

twinge (plural twinges)

1. A pinch; a tweak; a twitch.
2. A sudden sharp pain.

   I got a twinge in my arm.

   • 1935, Francis Beeding, “7/2”, in The Norwich Victims‎:

     The two Gordon setters came obediently to heel. Sir Oswald Feiling winced as he turned to go home. He had felt a warning twinge of lumbago.

twinge (third-person singular simple present twinges, present participle twingeing or twinging, simple past and past participle twinged)

1. (transitive) To pull with a twitch; to pinch; to tweak.
   • Hudibras

     When a man is past his sense, / There's no way to reduce him thence, / But twinging him by the ears or nose, / Or laying on of heavy blows.

2. (transitive) To affect with a sharp, sudden pain; to torment with pinching or sharp pains.
   • L'Estrange

     The gnat […] twinged him [the lion] till he made him tear himself, and so mastered him.

3. (intransitive) To have a sudden, sharp, local pain, like a twitch; to suffer a keen, darting, or shooting pain.

   My side twinges.

• Winget, tewing