twissel

• twistle, twissell

From Middle English twisel, twisil, from Old English twisel (“forked, double”), from Old English twisla (“confluence, junction”), from Proto-Germanic *twisilą (“fork, bifurcation”), from Proto-Indo-European *dwis- (“twice, in two”). Cognate with German Zwiesel (“fork”).

twissel (comparative more twissel, superlative most twissel)

1. (obsolete) Double; twofold.

twissel (plural twissels)

1. (rare) A double fruit or a pair of like things growing on a tree.
   • 16thC, George Turberville, The Louer, in 1810, Samuel Johnson (series editor & biographies), Alexander Chalmers (additional biographies), The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper, Volume II, page 599,

     As from a tree we sundrie times espie / A twissell grow by Nature's subtile might / And beeing two, for cause they grow so nie / For one are tane, and so appeare in sight;

2. (rare) That part of a tree where the branches separate from the trunk or bole; a fork.

• Wiltses, witless