twire

English

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈtwaɪə(ɹ)/

• Audio (Southern England)

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Etymology 1

From Middle English twiren (“to peep out, pry about, twinkle, glance, gleam”), cognate with Middle High German zwieren (“to spy”), Bavarian zwiren, zwieren (“to spy, glance”). Perhaps related to Old English twinclian (“to twinkle”). More at twinkle.

Alternative forms

• tweer

Verb

twire (third-person singular simple present twires, present participle twiring, simple past and past participle twired)

1. (intransitive) To glance shyly or slyly; look askance; make eyes; leer; peer; pry.
   • c. 1619–1623, John Fletcher, “Women Pleas’d”, in Comedies and Tragedies […], London: […] Humphrey Robinson, […], and for Humphrey Moseley […], published 1647, →OCLC, Act IV, scene i:

     I saw the wench that twired and twinkled at thee.

   • c. 1637, Ben Jonson, The Sad Shepherd:

     Which maids will twire at 'tween their fingers.

2. (intransitive) To twinkle; sparkle; wink.
   • 1609, William Shakespeare, “Sonnet 28”, in Shake-speares Sonnets. […], London: By G[eorge] Eld for T[homas] T[horpe] and are to be sold by William Aspley, →OCLC:

     When sparkling stars twire not, thou gild'st the even.

Noun

twire (plural twires)

1. A sly glance; a leer.

Etymology 2

From Middle English *twir, *twirn, twern, from Old English *twirn, *tweorn (“twine, thread”), from Proto-West Germanic *twiʀn (“thread”), from Proto-Indo-European *duwo- (“two”). Doublet of twine.

Noun

twire (plural twires)

1. A twisted filament; a thread.
   • 1766, John Locke, Observations Upon The Growth And Culture Of Vines And Olives […] :

     they put the cocons in hot water, and so stirring them about with a kind of rod, the ends of the silk twires of the cocons stick to it

Derived terms

• twire-pipe

 

Etymology 3

Perhaps from a dialectal form of *twere, from Middle English *tweren, from Old English þweran (“to stir”) (found in compound āþweran (“to agitate, stir”)), from Proto-Germanic *þweraną (“to stir”), from Proto-Indo-European *twer- (“to turn, twirl, swirl, move”). Cognate with Bavarian zweren (“to stir”). Compare twirk, twirl.

Verb

twire (third-person singular simple present twires, present participle twiring, simple past and past participle twired)

1. (transitive) To twist; twirl.

Etymology 4

Variant of tuyere.

Noun

twire (plural twires)

1. (obsolete) A pipe through which the blast is delivered to the interior of a blast furnace, or to the fire of a forge; a tuyere.

Anagrams

• twier, write