Twerk vs Twist - What's the difference?
twerk | twist |
(slang, dated, US) A puny or insignificant person, generally male; a twerp.
*1930 , , The Big Barn , page 207:
*:"'...but when they load a pack onto you, what'll you do? A little twerk like you?'"
*1932 , Forum and Century vol. 87 [http://books.google.com/books?ei=fz75RqyPOoWcpgKW19m0Dw]:
*:"But even then the poor twerk' s whiskers and little eyes looked kind of wistful as if the clothes had got him and was taking him somewhere..."
*2003 , Bernard Kamoroff, Small Time Operator [http://books.google.com/books?id=9qlizjnOrVcC], ISBN 0917510186, page 19,
*:You don't need those twerks who walk in off the street.
A fitful movement similar to a twitch or jerk.
*1898 , William Brigham, "Director's Report" in Occasional Papers of the Bernice Pauahi Museum vol. 1 no. 1, page 42:
*:"Not so the Freycineti, who looked me over critically, elevated his head crest, and giving his tail an odd little twerk , proceeded to hop deliberately up the limb like a sap-sucker..."
*1920 , Lilian C. McNamara Garis, The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest: Or, The Wig Wag Rescue [http://books.google.com/books?id=ulYCAAAAYAAJ], page 86,
*:"I hardly realize it yet that you are my really truly coz," and she gave the girl's long, brown braids a familiar twerk .
*1950 , Robert S. Close, Love Me Sailor [http://books.google.com/books?id=ySdBAAAAIAAJ], page 86,
*:With a quick twerk at her shift, the girl lifted it to her rounded belly, and squatted nakedly on his lap.
To twitch or jerk.
*1985 , Criena Rohan, Down by the Docks [http://books.google.com/books?id=ausNAAAAIAAJ], page 151,
*: in the language of the unsophisticated Port Melbourne suburbanite a bed was still something primarily intended for love-making – all the eyebrow-raising and moustache-twerking in Jo'burg couldn't alter that.
*2005 , Florence Hall Abssi, The Call [http://books.google.com/books?id=OyAkYG9lwD4C], page 613:
*:"He twerked an eyebrow at his wife."
To move the body in a sexually suggestive twisting or gyrating fashion.
*2005 , Euftis Emery, Off the Chain [http://books.google.com/books?id=Ib1vEpY4TpwC], ISBN 1411630475, page 73,
*2006 , Lawrence Christopher, Ghettoway Weekend [http://books.google.com/books?id=gOPfQEdpxkwC], ISBN 0971227845, page 96,
*:"Shortie'' really knows how to ''twerk it don't she?" Marcus boasted, while still recording.
* 2006 , :
To dance in a sexually suggestive manner, often involving rapid movement.
*2013', Nichole Smith, ABC News, ''High School Students Suspended for '''''Twerking'' [http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2013/05/high-school-students-suspended-for-twerking/]
An abrupt call, such as made by the California Quail.
*{{quote-book, year=1961, author=Roger Tory Peterson, title=A Field Guide to Western Birds
passage=Note of male on territory, a loud kurr or twerk .}}
A twisting force.
Anything twisted, or the act of twisting.
* 1906 , (Edith Nesbit), (The Railway Children) Chapter 8
* Addison
The form given in twisting.
* Arbuthnot
The degree of stress or strain when twisted.
A type of thread made from two filaments twisted together.
* 1596 , (Edmund Spenser), (The Faerie Queene) , IV.ii:
A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.
* 2005 , Theodore J. Albasini, The Progeny
A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc.
* 1899 , Edith Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods
* , chapter=1
, title= A distortion to the meaning of a word or passage.
An unexpected turn in a story, tale, etc.
* {{quote-news, 1987, October 23, Caryn James, Movie Review: No Man's Land (1987), New York Times
, passage=Though set in Los Angeles, the film has a familiar, television look and feel - two handsome partners, cops, criminals, fast cars and a marginal romance. The twist in the buddy-car-chase formula is that here the good guys tend to blur into the bad.}}
* {{quote-news, year=2012, date=May 24, author=Nathan Rabin, work=The Onion AV Club
, title= A type of dance characterised by rotating one’s hips. See
* {{quote-news, 1997, April 22, Jennifer Dunning, Surviving It All, Dismissals, Tours and Balanchine, New York Times
, passage=She taught him to do the twist , having learned it herself from an Alvin Ailey dancer at Jacob's Pillow. }}
A rotation of the body when diving.
A sprain, especially to the ankle.
(obsolete) A twig.
(slang) A girl, a woman.
* 1990 , (w, Miller's Crossing), 01:08:20
(obsolete) A roll of twisted dough, baked.
A material for gun barrels, consisting of iron and steel twisted and welded together.
The spiral course of the rifling of a gun barrel or a cannon.
(obsolete, slang) A beverage made of brandy and gin.
To turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force.
To join together by twining one part around another.
* 1900 , , (The Wonderful Wizard of Oz) Chapter 15
To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
* Alexander Pope
To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
* Waller
* T. Burnet
(reflexive) To wind into; to insinuate.
To turn a knob etc.
To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
* Exodus 23:8
To form a twist (in any of the above noun meanings).
To injure (a body part) by bending it in the wrong direction.
* 1913 , (George Bernard Shaw), Act V
* 1901 , (Henry Lawson), Joe Wilson's Courtship
(of a path) To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
* , chapter=1
, title= * 1926 , , He
To cause to rotate.
* 1911 , (John Masefield), Jim Davis Chapter 8
To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
To coax.
* 1932 , Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai
(card games) In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.
As nouns the difference between twerk and twist
is that twerk is (slang|dated|us) a puny or insignificant person, generally male; a twerp or twerk can be a fitful movement similar to a twitch or jerk or twerk can be an abrupt call, such as made by the california quail while twist is twist.As a verb twerk
is to twitch or jerk.twerk
English
Etymology 1
.Noun
(en noun)Usage notes
Found primarily in the 1930s-era works of .Etymology 2
(Twerking) .Noun
(en noun)Verb
(en verb)- Gaea then stood up over me and turned so that her butt was facing me. She then had the nerve to start twerking .
- Let me see what ya twerkin with
- Twerking, as it is known in the hip-hop community, is a hard-hitting, rump-shaking dance move that celebrities including Beyonce and Miley Cyrus have been known to bust out, but it has also gotten a group of San Diego high school students suspended.
Usage notes
In “sexually suggestive movements, especially dance”, particularly popularized since c. 2000 by US hip-hop.Derived terms
* twerkerEtymology 3
Onomatopoeia, possibly coined by .Noun
(en noun)citation
twist
English
(wikipedia twist)Noun
(en noun)- Peter was always proud afterwards when he remembered that, with the Bargee's furious fingers tightening on his ear, the Bargee's crimson countenance close to his own, the Bargee's hot breath on his neck, he had the courage to speak the truth.
- "I wasn't catching fish," said Peter.
- "That's not your fault, I'll be bound," said the man, giving Peter's ear a twist'—not a hard one—but still a ' twist .
- Not the least turn or twist in the fibres of any one animal which does not render them more proper for that particular animal's way of life than any other cast or texture.
- [He] shrunk at first sight of it; he found fault with the length, the thickness, and the twist .
- the thrid / By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine, / That cruell Atropos eftsoones vndid, / With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine [...].
- Bunny sat on the only remaining stool at the leather-padded oval bar in the Iron Lounge. It was happy hour, two drinks for the price of one. She decided on a martini with a twist , and while the bartender was preparing her drink, she scanned the faces looking at the bar.
- But here a twist in the stream brought us out from the bushes
Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
Film: Reviews: Men In Black 3, passage=In the abstract, Stuhlbarg’s twinkly-eyed sidekick suggests Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2 by way of late-period Robin Williams with an alien twist , but Stuhlbarg makes a character that easily could have come across as precious into a surprisingly palatable, even charming man.}}
- (Chaucer)
- (Fairfax)
- (Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops"
Descendants
* German: (l)Verb
(en verb)- "Well, one day I went up in a balloon and the ropes got twisted , so that I couldn't come down again. It went way up above the clouds, so far that a current of air struck it and carried it many, many miles away. For a day and a night I traveled through the air, and on the morning of the second day I awoke and found the balloon floating over a strange and beautiful country."
- Twist it into a serpentine form.
- longing to twist bays with that ivy
- There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
- Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
- And you will not take a bribe, because a bribe will blind the alert, and will twist the words of the righteous.
- Oh, you are a devil. You can twist the heart in a girl as easy as some could twist her arms to hurt her. Mrs. Pearce warned me. Time and again she has wanted to leave you; and you always got round her at the last minute. And you don't care a bit for her. And you don't care a bit for me.
- Then Romany went down, then we fell together, and the chaps separated us. I got another knock-down blow in, and was beginning to enjoy the novelty of it, when Romany staggered and limped.
- ‘I’ve done,’ he said. ‘I’ve twisted my ankle.’ He’d caught his heel against a tuft of grass.
Mr. Pratt's Patients, chapter=1 , passage=I stumbled along through the young pines and huckleberry bushes. Pretty soon I struck into a sort of path that, I cal'lated, might lead to the road I was hunting for. It twisted and turned, and, the first thing I knew, made a sudden bend around a bunch of bayberry scrub and opened out into a big clear space like a lawn.}}
- My coming to New York had been a mistake; for whereas I had looked for poignant wonder and inspiration in the teeming labyrinths of ancient streets that twist endlessly from forgotten courts and squares and waterfronts to courts and squares and waterfronts equally forgotten, and in the Cyclopean modern towers and pinnacles that rise blackly Babylonian under waning moons, I had found instead only a sense of horror and oppression which threatened to master, paralyze, and annihilate me.
- The tide seized us and swept us along, and in the races where this happened there were sucking whirlpools, strong enough to twist us round.
- "On the three-thousand-dollar reward John Bain is offerin' for the return of his sister," said Ace. "Now listen--I know a certain big Chinee had her kidnapped outa her 'rickshaw out at the edge of the city one evenin'. He's been keepin' her prisoner in his house, waitin' a chance to send her up-country to some bandit friends of his'n; then they'll be in position to twist a big ransome outa John Bain, see? [...]"
