Twiddle vs Twiddly - What's the difference?
twiddle | twiddly |
To wiggle, fidget or play with; to move around.
(computing) To flip or switch two adjacent bits.
(mathematics) To be in an equivalence relation with.
To play with anything; hence, to be busy about trifles.
Capable of being finely or idly adjusted with the fingers.
* 2011 , Fi Glover, Travels With My Radio: I Am An Oil Tanker
* (John Galsworthy)
Having an elaborately twisted form.
* 1958 , New Scientist
* 2010 , Lawrence Zeegen, Complete Digital Illustration: A Master Class in Image-Making
* 2011 , Pamela Haines, Men on White Horses
In music, having a rapid series of musical notes.
* {{quote-news, year=2001, date=September 7, author=Kevin Whitehead, title=The Gap Band, work=Chicago Reader
, passage=There are moments when the band sounds oddly like its acoustic predecessor, and there are some feints at free jazz, but the most curious episode, unlike any other live Miles I know, is a long spacey improvisation using wood flute, related less to the twiddly studio jams than to the ritual atmospherics of Chicago's creative-music vanguard. }}
* 2011 , Gavin Lyall, All Honourable Men
As a verb twiddle
is to wiggle, fidget or play with; to move around.As a noun twiddle
is a slight twist with the fingers.As an adjective twiddly is
capable of being finely or idly adjusted with the fingers.twiddle
English
Verb
(twiddl)- She sat and nervously twiddled her hair while she waited.
- (Halliwell)
Derived terms
* twiddle one's thumbs * twiddlertwiddly
English
Adjective
(en adjective)- Radio – with its buttons and twiddly knobs and white noise in between – is on the tip of a huge wave of change, courtesy of the Internet.
- Through the open doorway Nedda could see the back of Mr. Cuthcott in a twiddly chair, surrounded by sheets of paper reposing on the floor, shining like autumn leaves on a pool of water.
- The design of an indicator is often — indeed usually — thought to be the business of the engineer, perhaps aided by someone — an artist or a "stylist" — who adds an aesthetic touch, a twiddly bit, a strip of chromium, a dash of paint, or better still several dashes in clashing colours, of which a bilious yellow will be one.
- Everyone has a computer, everyone has the same software, and everyone thinks they can stick a couple of butterflies onto a twiddly background and they have an illustration. They don't have an illustration; they have decoration.
- It was her nose was the worst. It seemed to have been twisted into a hook with a twiddly bit at the top.
citation
- The bugle called, a twiddly bit and then one long note.