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Twitch vs Earthquake - What's the difference?

twitch | earthquake | Related terms |

Twitch is a related term of earthquake.


As nouns the difference between twitch and earthquake

is that 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 while earthquake is a shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.

As a verb twitch

is to perform a twitch; spasm.

twitch

English

Etymology 1

From (etyl) twicchen, from (etyl) twiccian, from (etyl) ).

Noun

(es)
  • A brief, small (sometimes involuntary) movement out of place and then back again; a spasm.
    • I saw a little twitch in the man's face, and knew he was lying.
  • (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.
    • Derived terms
    * nervous twitch

    Verb

  • To perform a twitch; spasm.
  • * (rfdate) — [http://www.mindspring.com/~randyhoward/new_page_6.htm]
    • "Why is it that you twitch whenever I say Faith?"
  • * 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.
    • to twitch somebody's sleeve for attention
  • * Alexander Pope
    • Thrice they twitched the diamond in her ear.
  • To spot or seek out a bird, especially a rare one.
  • * 1995 , Quarterly Review of Biology vol. 70 p. 348:
    • "The Birdwatchers Handbook ... will be a clear asset to those who 'twitch' in Europe."
  • * 2003 , Mark Cocker, Birders: Tales of a Tribe [http://books.google.com/books?id=tv-Noj1Fvc0C], ISBN 0802139965, page 52:
    • "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."
  • * 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:
    • "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. "
    Usage notes
    When used of birdwatchers by ignorant outsiders, this term frequently carries a negative connotation.
    Derived terms
    * atwitch

    Etymology 2

    alternate of quitch

    Noun

    (-)
  • couch grass, Elymus repens ; a species of grass, often considered as a weed.

    • earthquake

    English

    (wikipedia earthquake)

    Noun

    (en noun)
  • A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults.
  • * 1590 , (Edmund Spenser), The Faerie Queene , III.2:
    • Her alablaster brest she soft did kis, / Which all that while shee felt to pant and quake, / As it an Earth-quake were: at last she thus bespake.
  • * 2006 , Declan Walsh, The Guardian , 6 Oct 2006:
    • Last year's earthquake crushed his house, his livelihood and very nearly his leg, he said, pointing to a plastered limb that refuses to heal.

    Synonyms

    * earthdin * quake * seism * temblor * terremote * tremblor * tremor

    Derived terms

    * earthquake-prone

    Related terms

    * moonquake * seaquake * starquake

    See also

    * aftershock * earthquake engineering * fault line * Richter scale * seismic * seismograph * seismologist * seismology * tremor * tsunami