Cramp vs Twitch - What's the difference?
cramp | twitch |
A painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled.
* Sir T. More
That which confines or contracts; a restraint; a shackle; a hindrance.
* L'Estrange
* Cowper
A clamp for carpentry or masonry.
A piece of wood having a curve corresponding to that of the upper part of the instep, on which the upper leather of a boot is stretched to give it the requisite shape.
(of a muscle) To contract painfully and uncontrollably.
To prohibit movement or expression.
* Layard
To restrain to a specific physical position, as if with a cramp.
* Ford
To fasten or hold with, or as if with, a cramp.
(by extension) To bind together; to unite.
* Burke
To form on a cramp.
A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.
(informal) Action of spotting or seeking out a bird, especially a rare one.
(farriery) A stick with a hole in one end through which passes a loop, which can be drawn tightly over the upper lip or an ear of a horse and twisted to keep the animal quiet during minor surgery.
To perform a twitch; spasm.
* (rfdate) — [http://www.mindspring.com/~randyhoward/new_page_6.htm]
* 1922 , (Margery Williams), (The Velveteen Rabbit)
*:Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crept quite close to him, twitching their noses...
To jerk sharply and briefly.
* Alexander Pope
To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
* 1995 , Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:
* 2003 , Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe [http://books.google.com/books?id=tv-Noj1Fvc0C], ISBN 0802139965, page 52:
* 2005 , Sean Dooley, The Big Twitch: One Man, One Continent, a Race Against Time [http://books.google.com/books?id=fWLmpqL4EMsC], ISBN 1741145287, page 119:
couch grass, Elymus repens ; a species of grass, often considered as a weed.
In lang=en terms the difference between cramp and twitch
is that cramp is to restrain to a specific physical position, as if with a cramp while twitch is to spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.As nouns the difference between cramp and twitch
is that cramp is a painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled while twitch is a brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm or twitch can be couch grass, elymus repens ; a species of grass, often considered as a weed.As verbs the difference between cramp and twitch
is that cramp is (of a muscle) to contract painfully and uncontrollably while twitch is to perform a twitch; spasm.cramp
English
(wikipedia cramp)Noun
(en noun)- The cramp , divers nights, gripeth him in his legs.
- A narrow fortune is a cramp to a great mind.
- crippling his pleasures with the cramp of fear
Derived terms
* brain cramp * cramp ring * writer's crampVerb
(en verb)- You're cramping my style.
- The mind may be as much cramped by too much knowledge as by ignorance.
- You're going to need to cramp the wheels on this hill.
- when the gout cramps my joints
- The fabric of universal justice is well cramped and bolted together in all its parts.
- to cramp boot legs
References
* ----twitch
English
Etymology 1
From (etyl) twicchen, from (etyl) twiccian, from (etyl) ).Noun
(es)- I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying.
Derived terms
* nervous twitchVerb
- "Why is it that you twitch whenever I say Faith?"
- to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention
- Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.
- "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."
- "But the key revelation from twitching that wonderful Iceland Gull on 10 March 1974 wasn't its eroticism. It was the sheer innocence of it."
- "I hadn't seen John since I went to Adelaide to (unsuccessfully) twitch the '87 Northern Shoveler, when I was a skinny, eighteen- year-old kid. "
