twice
English
edit| 20 | ||
| [a], [b] ← 1 | 2 | 3 → [a], [b] |
|---|---|---|
| Cardinal: two Ordinal: second Abbreviated ordinal: 2nd Latinate ordinal: secondary Reverse order ordinal: second to last, second from last, last but one Latinate reverse order ordinal: penultimate Adverbial: two times, twice Multiplier: twofold Latinate multiplier: double Distributive: doubly Germanic collective: pair, twosome Collective of n parts: doublet, couple, couplet Greek or Latinate collective: dyad Metric collective prefix: double- Greek collective prefix: di-, duo- Latinate collective prefix: bi- Fractional: half Metric fractional prefix: demi- Latinate fractional prefix: semi- Greek fractional prefix: hemi- Elemental: twin, doublet Greek prefix: deutero- Number of musicians: duo, duet, duplet Number of years: biennium | ||
Etymology
editFrom earlier twise, from Middle English twies, twiȝes, from Old English twīġes (“twice”), from twīwa, twīġa ("twice"; whence Middle English twie (“twice”)) + -es (adverbial genitive ending). Related to Saterland Frisian twäie (“twice”), Middle Low German twiges, twies (“twice”), Middle High German zwies (“twice”). Compare also twi- meaning two or both.
Pronunciation
editAdverb
edittwice (not comparable)
- Two times.
- You should brush your teeth twice a day.
- No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once. (1947, Twenty-second Amendment to the United States Constitution, Section 1)
- 1824, Lord Byron, “Canto the Thirteenth”, in Don Juan:
- I've done with my tirade. The world was gone; / The twice two thousand, for whom earth was made, / Were vanish'd to be what they call alone
- 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter V, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- He could not be induced to remain permanently at Mohair because Miss Trevor was at Asquith, but he appropriated a Hempstead cart from the Mohair stables and made the trip sometimes twice in a day.
- 1934, J. Fred Coots, Haven Gillespie, “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town”:
- Santa Claus is coming to town / He’s making a list, / And checking it twice, / He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice / Santa Claus is coming to town
- (usually with "as", of a specified quality) Doubled in quantity, intensity, or degree.
- 1826, John Nicholson, The Operative Mechanic, and British Machinist: Being a Practical Display of the Manufactories and Mechanical Arts of the United Kingdom, volume 1, H.C. Carey & I. Lea, page 78:
- Thus it appears that if the machine is turning twice as slow as before, there is more than twice the former quantity in the rising buckets; and more will be raised in a minute by the same expenditure of power.
- 1896, Livingston Stone, Domesticated Trout: How to Breed and Grow Them, 4th edition, page 304:
- You can't get anything thinner than a spring shad, unless you take a couple of them, when, of course, they will be twice as thin.
- 1952, Peter Lincoln Spencer, Building mathematical concepts in the elementary school, page 139:
- MARY: As you go from left to right, each example has twice as many twos; from right to left, twice as few.
- 1995, Louise Corti, Heather Laurie, Shirley Dex, Highly Qualified Women, Great Britain. Dept. of Employment, page 18:
- Both men and women with higher qualifications were twice as less likely to be unemployed than their less qualified counterparts.
Synonyms
edit- double
- doubly
- two times
- See also Thesaurus:twice
Derived terms
edit- a broken clock is right twice a day
- any day of the week and twice on Sunday
- any day of the week and twice on Sundays
- a stopped clock is right twice a day
- at twice
- even a stopped clock is right twice a day
- every day of the week and twice on Sunday
- every day of the week and twice on Sundays
- first cousin twice removed
- hit the ball twice
- I don't boil my cabbage twice
- I don't chew my cabbage twice
- lightning does not strike twice in the same place
- lightning doesn't strike twice in the same place
- lightning never strikes the same place twice
- lightning never strikes twice
- lightning never strikes twice in the same place
- measure twice and cut once
- money won is twice as sweet as money earned
- once a man, twice a boy
- once a man, twice a child
- once a woman, twice a child
- once or twice
- opportunity seldom knocks twice
- strike twice
- the candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long
- think twice
- twice as less
- twice-baked bread
- twice-borrowed
- twice-exceptional
- twice-exceptionality
- twice-laid
- twice removed
- twice-stabbed stink bug
- twice-told
- twice-weekly
- twice-yearly
- you can't step in the same river twice
Translations
edittwo times
|
See also
editCategories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms inherited from Old English
- English terms derived from Old English
- English 1-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio pronunciation
- Rhymes:English/aɪs
- Rhymes:English/aɪs/1 syllable
- English lemmas
- English adverbs
- English uncomparable adverbs
- English terms with usage examples
- English terms with quotations
- English frequency adverbs
- en:Time
- en:Two