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Twist vs Change - What's the difference?

twist | change |

In transitive terms the difference between twist and change

is that twist is to coax while change is to replace.

In intransitive terms the difference between twist and change

is that twist is to dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips) while change is to transfer to another vehicle (train, bus, etc..

As nouns the difference between twist and change

is that twist is a twisting force while change is the process of becoming different.

As verbs the difference between twist and change

is that twist is to turn the ends of something, usually thread, rope etc., in opposite directions, often using force while change is to become something different.

twist

English

(wikipedia twist)

Noun

(en noun)
  • A twisting force.
  • Anything twisted, or the act of twisting.
  • * 1906 , (Edith Nesbit), (The Railway Children) Chapter 8
  • 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 .
  • * Addison
  • 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.
  • The form given in twisting.
  • * Arbuthnot
  • [He] shrunk at first sight of it; he found fault with the length, the thickness, and the twist .
  • 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:
  • the thrid / By griesly Lachesis was spun with paine, / That cruell Atropos eftsoones vndid, / With cursed knife cutting the twist in twaine [...].
  • A sliver of lemon peel added to a cocktail, etc.
  • * 2005 , Theodore J. Albasini, The Progeny
  • 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.
  • A sudden bend (or short series of bends) in a road, path, etc.
  • * 1899 , Edith Nesbit, The Wouldbegoods
  • But here a twist in the stream brought us out from the bushes
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= 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.}}
  • 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= 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.}}
  • 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.
  • (Chaucer)
    (Fairfax)
  • (slang) A girl, a woman.
  • * 1990 , (w, Miller's Crossing), 01:08:20
  • (Dane, speaking about a woman character) "I'll see where the twist flops"
  • (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.
  • Descendants

    * German: (l)

    Verb

    (en verb)
  • 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
  • "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."
  • To contort; to writhe; to complicate; to crook spirally; to convolve.
  • * Alexander Pope
  • Twist it into a serpentine form.
  • To wreathe; to wind; to encircle; to unite by intertexture of parts.
  • * Waller
  • longing to twist bays with that ivy
  • * T. Burnet
  • There are pillars of smoke twisted about wreaths of flame.
  • (reflexive) To wind into; to insinuate.
  • Avarice twists itself into all human concerns.
  • To turn a knob etc.
  • To distort or change the truth or meaning of words when repeating.
  • * Exodus 23:8
  • And you will not take a bribe, because a bribe will blind the alert, and will twist the words of the righteous.
  • 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
  • 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.
  • * 1901 , (Henry Lawson), Joe Wilson's Courtship
  • 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.
  • (of a path) To wind; to follow a bendy or wavy course; to have many bends.
  • * , chapter=1
  • , title= 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.}}
  • * 1926 , , He
  • 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.
  • To cause to rotate.
  • * 1911 , (John Masefield), Jim Davis Chapter 8
  • 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.
  • To dance the twist (a type of dance characterised by twisting one's hips).
  • To coax.
  • * 1932 , Robert E. Howard, Dark Shanghai
  • "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? [...]"
  • (card games) In the game of blackjack (pontoon or twenty-one), to be dealt another card.
  • Antonyms

    : stick; stay

    Derived terms

    (terms derived from the noun and verb "twist") * French twist * get one's knickers in a twist * intertwist * nontwist * overtwist * plot twist * retwist * round the twist * supertwist * twist and turn * twist around * twist drill * twist grip * twist in the wind * twist of fate * twist off * twist someone's arm * twist someone's balls * twist up * twistable * twister * twistfree * twistical * twistwood * twisty * undertwist * untwist

    Anagrams

    * English ergative verbs ----

    change

    English

    Verb

    (chang)
  • To become something different.
  • (ergative) To make something into something different.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=The climate of Tibet: Pole-land
  • , date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80 , magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change, the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
  • * {{quote-magazine, year=2013, month=July-August, author= Catherine Clabby
  • , magazine=(American Scientist), title= Focus on Everything , passage=Not long ago, it was difficult to produce photographs of tiny creatures with every part in focus.
  • To replace.
  • To replace one's clothing.
  • To transfer to another vehicle (train, bus, etc.)
  • (archaic) To exchange.
  • * 1610 , , by (William Shakespeare), act 1 scene 2
  • At the first sight / they have changed eyes. (exchanged looks )
  • * 1662 , Galileo's Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems (Dialogue 2):
  • I would give any thing to change a word or two with this person.
  • To change hand while riding (a horse).
  • to change a horse

    Synonyms

    * (to make something different) alter, modify * (to make something into something different) transform

    Derived terms

    * changeable * change by reversal * change course * change direction * changeful * change out * change hands * change horses in midstream * change integrity * changeling * change one's mind * change one's tune * change places * change tack * change the channel * change the subject * change up * chop and change * everchanging * get changed * leopard change his spots * presto change-o *

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • (countable) The process of becoming different.
  • * {{quote-magazine, title=The climate of Tibet: Pole-land
  • , date=2013-05-11, volume=407, issue=8835, page=80 , magazine=(The Economist) citation , passage=Of all the transitions brought about on the Earth’s surface by temperature change , the melting of ice into water is the starkest. It is binary. And for the land beneath, the air above and the life around, it changes everything.}}
    The product is undergoing a change in order to improve it.
  • (uncountable) Small denominations of money given in exchange for a larger denomination.
  • Can I get change for this $100 bill please?
  • (countable) A replacement, e.g. a change of clothes
  • * {{quote-news
  • , year=2010 , date=December 29 , author=Mark Vesty , title=Wigan 2 - 2 Arsenal , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=After beating champions Chelsea 3-1 on Boxing Day, Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger made eight changes to his starting XI in an effort to freshen things up, with games against Birmingham and Manchester City to come in the next seven days.}}
  • (uncountable) Money given back when a customer hands over more than the exact price of an item.
  • A customer who pays with a 10-pound note for a £9 item receives one pound in change .
  • (countable) A transfer between vehicles.
  • The train journey from Bristol to Nottingham includes a change at Birmingham.
  • (baseball) A change-up pitch.
  • (lb) Any order in which a number of bells are struck, other than that of the diatonic scale.
  • * Holder
  • Four bells admit twenty-four changes in ringing.
  • A place where merchants and others meet to transact business; an exchange.
  • A public house; an alehouse.
  • * Burt
  • They call an alehouse a change .

    Usage notes

    * Adjectives often applied to "change": big, small, major, minor, dramatic, drastic, rapid, slow, gradual, radical, evolutionary, revolutionary, abrupt, sudden, unexpected, incremental, social, economic, organizational, technological, personal, cultural, political, technical, environmental, institutional, educational, genetic, physical, chemical, industrial, geological, global, local, good, bad, positive, negative, significant, important, structural, strategic, tactical.

    Synonyms

    (the process of becoming different) transition, transformation

    Derived terms

    * and change * breaking change * bureau de change * chump change * cool change * change agent * change key * change-off * change of heart * change of innings * change of life * change of mind * change of state * change order * change ringing * change-up * chemical change * chump change * climate change * deflection change * fatty change * net change * oil change * phase change * quick-change * regime change * sea change * seed change * sex change * shortchange * small change * sound change * spare change * step change * technological change * the change

    See also

    * modification * mutation * evolution * exchange * reorganization

    References

    *