twister
Americannoun
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twisters
plural
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a person or thing that twists.
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Informal. a whirlwind or tornado.
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Chiefly British Informal. a deceitful, unscrupulous person.
noun
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a swindling or dishonest person
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a person or thing that twists, such as a device used in making ropes
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an informal name for tornado
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a ball moving with a twisting motion
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of twister
1475–85; 1895–1900 twister for def. 2; twist + -er 1
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:
It was as if a twister had hit the terminal.
From Slate ● Jul. 7, 2026
But when a twister menaces their city, and Dad calls the boys while on the air, that goes viral and there’s actually a moral to the story.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2025
While a twister didn’t end up touching down in San Francisco, one did just south in Scotts Valley in Santa Cruz County.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 16, 2024
She was always more of a flipper than a twister, and Dennis sometimes landed on her neck from over-rotating her warm-up drills.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 23, 2024
“How did you—” Dimarion’s deep voice was barely audible in the howling of the twister.
From "The Reader" by Traci Chee
Missouri bore the brunt of the twisters, which began to spawn on Friday.
From BBC ● Mar. 16, 2025
The latest twisters follow another powerful tornado which tore through a rural Iowa town and killed four people earlier in May.
From BBC ● May 27, 2024
Much of Houston was battered by winds of speeds up to 100 miles per hour, rivaling speeds seen during Hurricane Ike, with “some twisters mixed in,” the city’s mayor, John Whitmire, said at the briefing.
From New York Times ● May 16, 2024
This year, we got two violent twisters in two days.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 11, 2023
High John stepped out of the fold of Old Familiar’s wings, his footsteps sending little twisters of dust spinning down the ramp.
From "Tristan Strong Punches a Hole in the Sky" by Kwame Mbalia
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.
