tweedle
Americanverb (used without object)
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to produce high-pitched, modulated sounds, as a singer, bird, or musical instrument.
-
to perform lightly upon a musical instrument.
verb (used with object)
Etymology
Origin of tweedle
First recorded in 1675–85; imitative
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
“I’ll miss the living tweedle out of chatting with the many friends I made there about plants, dogs, life and everything gardening.”
From Seattle Times ● Mar. 2, 2024
Gorey admires O’Hara’s ease, how he would “sit down and tweedle, tweedle, tweedle, write another three-page poem, then off to the movies.”
From New York Times ● Jun. 14, 2022
The segment turned out quite funny, yet informative, and when the programing director saw it, he surprised the living tweedle out of Meeghan by asking her to do a show with me.
From Seattle Times ● Sep. 6, 2018
In May, when it’s in full bloom with long, hanging, fragrant flowers, I definitely love the tweedle out of it.
From Seattle Times ● May 23, 2018
Chloe and Gui can stay together forever, embracing in a paper heart while songbirds tweedle the flippin’ dee-dee.
From "Landscape with Invisible Hand" by M.T. Anderson
Bamboo flutes tweedled, brass gongs thrummed, and Montagnard maidens twisted ceremonial copper bracelets round the wrists of President Nguyen Van Thieu, Premier Tran Van Huong and other South Vietnamese dignitaries.
From Time Magazine Archive
"Just your age!" tweedled the Tuckers, who had been listening, with open mouths and eyes, in speechless silence to Mr. Pore's revelations.
From Vacation with the Tucker Twins by Speed, Nell
"We'll save the big ones for blowers but we must have some showers!" they tweedled.
From Back at School with the Tucker Twins by Speed, Nell
"I—I——" "Go on and tell him, Page!" tweedled the twins, trying to control their emotions.
From Tripping with the Tucker Twins by Speed, Nell
"I—" tweedled the twins and then both stopped.
From Back at School with the Tucker Twins by Speed, Nell
Or perhaps, tweedling between the cricket scores and a complicated symphony on Radio 3, he accidentally rolled past a two-for-one ticket offer on the sort of station I listen to.
From The Guardian ● Jul. 23, 2011
Mr. Tucker called it tweedling when the girls spoke in chorus as was their habit.
From At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins by Speed, Nell
Somewhere he heard a hummingbird singing, a tiny tweedling thread of song, while farther off two roosters were crowing back and forth at each other with strained and raucous trumpet calls.
From Vandover and the Brute by Norris, Frank
"Stop tweedling and look over the menu and see what we shall order to supplement with."
From At Boarding School with the Tucker Twins by Speed, Nell
She declined on the plea of being tired and having to walk to Stickleford, when Mop began aggressively tweedling ‘My Fancy-Lad,’ in D major, as the air to which the reel was to be footed.
From Life's Little Ironies by Hardy, Thomas
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
