twit
1 Americanverb (used with object)
-
twits,
present (3rd person singular)
-
twitted,
past participle, past
-
twitting
present participle
noun
noun
noun
verb
noun
-
informal a nervous or excitable state
-
rare a reproach; taunt
noun
Other Word Forms
Inflected Forms
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
-
twitsimple
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twitssimple
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have twittedperfect
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has twittedperfect
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am twittingprogressive
-
are twittingprogressive
-
is twittingprogressive
-
have been twittingperfect progressive
-
has been twittingperfect progressive
Past
-
twittedsimple
-
had twittedperfect
-
was twittingprogressive
-
were twittingprogressive
-
had been twittingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of twit1
First recorded in 1520–30; shortened variant of obsolete atwite, Middle English atwiten, Old English ætwītan “to taunt,” equivalent to æt- “at” + wītan “to blame”; see at 1
Origin of twit2
First recorded in 1810–20; origin uncertain
Origin of twit3
First recorded in 1920–25; perhaps originally noun derivative of twit 1, i.e., “one who twits others,” but altered in sense by association with expressive words with tw- ( twaddle, twat, twerp, etc.) and by rhyme with nitwit
Origin of twit4
First recorded in 1890–95; probably shortened from twitter
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:
Jane Austen wrote takedowns of this kind of ninny two centuries ago — how fun to see Pike update her twit to the post-Y2K era.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 7, 2024
Immediately after elevating himself to self-proclaimed chief twit, Musk shoved out chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde, the leader of all things trust and safety.
From Slate ● Nov. 20, 2022
You’ll recall that in Season 1 of “Thrones,” the twit Lancel Lannister plied Robert with wine on a hunt, at Cersei’s behest, leaving the king vulnerable to the boar attack that ultimately killed him.
From New York Times ● Sep. 4, 2022
The satire of a privileged twit is dry and delicious.
From Salon ● Jan. 15, 2022
Rachel/Rachelle and some other twit natter about the movie date before Mr. Stetman starts class.
From "Speak" by Laurie Halse Anderson
As long as dangerous and ridiculous true-life twits like Gorka — and Musk — can be mercilessly satirized on Twitter, I’m staying.
From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 27, 2022
In the song, by Michael Heitzman and Ilene Reid, Luker twits her image as a “spoonful of saccharine” but also punctures it.
From New York Times ● May 2, 2021
Wodehouse, whose accounts of upper-class twits effervesce with smile-inducing similes: “She came leaping towards me, like Lady Macbeth coming to get first-hand news from the guest-room.”
From Washington Post ● Mar. 31, 2021
It’s just that not sending a thank-you note could signal that we haven’t received it or that we’re ill-mannered twits.
From Slate ● Sep. 21, 2020
She stalks away, muttering about twits who flaunt regulation.
From "An Ember in the Ashes" by Sabaa Tahir
At a rally last month in Youngstown, with Vance sitting in the front row, Trump twitted the candidate for his devotion.
From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 16, 2022
He twitted Dwight D. Eisenhower for his dullness.
From New York Times ● Oct. 26, 2021
But then, haven’t you always wanted to see George R. R. Martin twitted for not having completed his book series?
From New York Times ● Oct. 16, 2017
President Coolidge twitted Governor Byrd about a cartoon in the Richmond Times-Dispatch which showed a Southern.Colonel peering through a knothole in the fence of a football field.
From Time Magazine Archive
Now some imaginatively heterodoxical men are often surprisingly twitted upon their willful inverting of all common-sense notions, their absurd and all-displacing transcendentals, which say three is four, and two and two make ten.
From Pierre; or The Ambiguities by Herman Melville
Also not helping: the appearance of a cheap-laugh Charlton Heston, twitting his liberal friends who suddenly want a gun.
From New York Times ● Nov. 1, 2021
Before long, the poster boy for “Tory modernization”—and, it emerged, a passionate user of the textspeak “LOL,” which he used to mean “lots of love”—was twitting away himself.
From The New Yorker ● Jul. 14, 2016
The triangle always felt like a deliberate twitting of Twilight's similar setup.
From The Verge ● Nov. 18, 2015
When he coined that phrase 60 years ago, New Yorker writer A. J. Liebling was twitting Chicagoans for their obsession with not measuring up to New York.
From Newsweek ● Feb. 27, 2011
"There's no good twitting me wid being a gel," interrupted Sue; "gels have their use in creation same as boys, and I guess as they're often the pluckier o' the two."
From Sue, A Little Heroine by L. T. Meade
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