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• twain
  twain

  adjective

  two.
• Twain
  Twain

  noun

  Mark, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

twain

¹ American  

[tweyn] / tweɪn /

adjective

1. two.

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Twain ² American  

[tweyn] / tweɪn /

noun

1. Mark, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens.

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Twain ¹ British  

/ tweɪn /

noun

1. Mark , pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens . 1835–1910, US novelist and humorist, famous for his classics The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)

2. Shania (ʃəˈnaɪə), real name Eilleen Regina Edwards. born 1965, Canadian country-rock singer; her bestselling recordings include The Woman In Me (1995) Come On Over (1997), and UP! (2002)

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twain ² British  

/ tweɪn /

determiner

1. an archaic word for two

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Etymology

Origin of twain

before 900; Middle English twayn originally, nominative and accusative masculine, Old English twēgen ( cf. two); cognate with obsolete German zween

Explanation

If you want an old-fashioned way to talk about two things, use the noun twain. You might lament that your pair of dogs was divided in twain when you had to give one of them away. The word twain is hardly ever used these days, so you're most likely to see it in an old book of poetry, or in the phrase "never the twain shall meet." This saying means that two people — or groups of people — are so unlike each other that they'll never manage to see things the same way. The origin of twain is the Old English word for two, twegen.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

twain Twain

That’s why, if you don’t want your house cleaved in twain, diagnosing your trees is best left to a certified arborist.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 4, 2026

That's true of religion and genre franchise entertainment, and often the twain meets within the fandoms of heritage brands like "Star Wars," the Tolkien universe, and, yes, "Star Trek."

From Salon ● Mar. 2, 2023

“This is one of the evils of the ‘two cultures’ myth,” he says: Some students are channeled into scientific subjects, and others into humanities, and “never the twain shall meet.”

From Science Magazine ● Jan. 18, 2023

Writing was writing, art was art, and never the twain should meet.

From Los Angeles Times ● Nov. 30, 2022

And at Batavia High School, never the twain shall meet.

From "Love, Hate & Other Filters" by Samira Ahmed

Twain bought the retreat for $3,250,000 in the early 1990s, then refurbished and expanded the 28,000-square-foot residence to add a recording studio.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 13, 2026

“Mark Twain said there are three types of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics. This website contains all three,” Lynn Tramonte, Ohio Immigrant Alliance’s executive director, said in a statement.

From Salon ● Jul. 8, 2026

Decades afterward, now the most famous writer in America, Twain remained so convinced that mechanized typesetting could revolutionize the industry that he lost a fortune investing in one fatally flawed invention.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 30, 2026

One year I was watching, I think it was the People’s Choice Awards or the American Music Awards or something, and Shania Twain lost to LeAnn Rimes, and I cried for a day.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 11, 2026

Liyana was writing about Mark Twain, since he too had lived in Missouri, her old state, and no one else in her class had chosen an American for their author’s report.

From "Habibi" by Naomi Shihab Nye

Related Words

• couple
• double
• pair
• team